Johannesburg, South Africa: Capitec CEO, Riaan Stassen has giving clear indications that it would not be left behind in the M-Payment frenzy sweeping the South African financial landscape. In an interview with Moneyweb, he says electronic transactions are the way of the future.

According to him, the bank’s proposition for M-Payment " will be sourced [internationally] but obviously that'll just be the core application which will be changed according to our core needs. Today I can't give you timeline. We're busy with the final project assessment. It's still in the concept stage.

"The idea is that it won't be a generic product. It will encompass a new look at how people want to manage their finances because bear in mind the way banking used to be was pretty much either branch-based or card-based.

"With the new delivery channels, cell and internet, there's a lot more of a direct connectivity between the customer and these financial management systems and we're guiding that whole approach to really leapfrog the others and not just again give a new delivery channel to the same system/platform."

Asked whether the system will link directly to ones existing account, versus a PayPal where one cannot earn interest on cash balances and one also needs to transfer money to a PayPal account, Stassen explains "we still stick to the GlobalOne facility. That's fundamental. We believe the customer wants to have a global view of all his financial cash flows and wants to manage that properly."

Carl Fischer, head of marketing and corporate communication, says "if you look at the PayPal thing, it's essentially an electronic MoneyGram."

Asked whether it will work like M-Pesa in Kenya where money transfers are very cheap, around 50c is the price I've heard, Stassen responds with "that is why when we revised our pricing in March you can see we've dropped the cost of inter-account transfers. Previously if you transferred funds from a transactional account to a savings account or back there was a R2.50 charge."

Looks like technology is working to wrench cash out of our hands and replace that with our cellphones.

 

 

 

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