CC Image courtesy of Education Mobile Game.
South Africa’s Net1 Mobile Solutions and Supa Pesa have expanded their “Advance Airtime” offering into Malawi, allowing TeleKom Networks Malawi (TNM) customers to buy prepaid airtime on credit and pay for the voucher at a later stage.
The operator said the offering, dubbed “Pasavute”, is intended to bring flexibility and convenience to customers, allowing them to purchase one airtime voucher at a time in advance, paying the face value of the voucher and a service fee later.
“Pasavute has been designed to provide flexibility and convenience to TNM’s prepaid customers whenever and wherever they run out of money for talk time,” said Charles Kamoto, chief commercial officer (CCO) of TNM.
“We believe in ensuring that our customers are taken care of, and that is why we have brought them Pasavute, giving our customers access to airtime when and where they need it most.”
Airtime loans are only available for qualifying customers based on their previous airtime usage to ensure customers cannot over-borrow, with Net1’s Airtime Advance Server calculating loan options for each individual customer, which they may then select from.
“A key feature of the service is the pre-qualification and scoring engine which allows TNM to evaluate whether a customer qualifies for a loan or not”, said Philip Belamant, managing director of Net1 Mobile Solutions.
“A subscriber will only be provided with a loan that they can afford based on previous usage patterns.”
The service is also based on a double opt-in system making costs transparent and avoiding accidental purchases.
“The service N1MS is providing is built around a double opt-in, so we ensure that the customer first selects and then confirms their purchase with all costs provided up front,” said Belamant.
“We believe this is a strong differentiator for our service, as we don’t want subscribers borrowing airtime credit which they cannot afford to repay. This puts unnecessary financial pressure on both customers and on the mobile network.”
The loan amount is deducted from a customer’s airtime account the next time the account is topped up.
Airtime loans can be accessed by dialling *600# on a TNM mobile.
