MOBILE MONEY TRANSACTIONS HIT 50TRI/-

MOBILE money transactions in 10 months ending April this year reached 1,444.6 million worth 49.99tri/-, thanks to interoperability among the four major mobile payment services providers.

According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) Monetary Policy Statement (MPS), the transactions and their value are much higher than 1,217.70 million transactions valued 43.86tri/- that took place during a similar period of the preceding year.

“The interoperability among the four major mobile payment services providers that has contributed to substantial increase in transactions across 34 network operators while reducing the cost of mobile financial services,” stated the MPS.

The four major mobile operators that reached an interoperability agreement to allow their customers to interact with each other in September 2014 are Vodacom, Tigo, Airtel and Zantel. During the period under review, the retail payment systems such as the usage of card payments, automated teller machines and point of sale (POS) increased slightly.

The number of registered active users of mobile phone financial services was above 17.3 million by end April, 2017. Furthermore, other developments such as consideration for the switching solution among the service providers are being reviewed within the industry.

The Bank said going forward it is expected that the process of transiting into the new regulatory framework for the payment systems will be finalized by ensuring that all existing payment systems providers have fully complied with the new requirements under the current framework. Based on that, the oversight and monitoring of the systems will be conducted under the new framework.

The efforts to connect government institutions to TISS will also be enhanced with a view to ensure that all government institutions are participating in the system.

It is expected also that the new National Payment Systems Strategic Framework (2017/27) will be implemented to provide for strategic directions for further modernisation and development of the National Payment Systems.

DailyNews