The United Bank for Africa (UBA), the-pan African banking group, has introduced Africard in Zambia to promote online shopping and payments in the southern African country.
The product is a prepaid Visa card that does not require a bank account, and can be used even by the poor and unbanked both in rural and urban areas.
Abba Bello, the bank's MD, said it is committed to creating new models of banking with the objectives of responding to the needs of unbanked populace.
The card is an excellent alternative for cash disbursement of wages and salary payments, online shopping and money transfer, and can be used as a foreign exchange card, he added.
“Although the product is designed to reach the financially underserved customers, particularly those without a traditional banking relationship, the Africard is everyone's card,” Bello said.
The card is the first to be introduced in Zambia by a bank, and is expected to increase the appetite for online shopping in Zambia and encourage people to use cards when shopping, as opposed to carrying huge sums of money.
Other banks in Zambia, including Standard Chartered Bank - in a partnership with the Zambia Telecommunication Company (Zamtel) - have only been able to roll out mobile banking services.
As with the Standard Chartered Bank mobile banking services, the UBA card will also allow card holders to pay utility bills anytime.
Fresh ideas
In Zambia, as in many other African countries, banks are coming up with innovative banking and shopping services, in order to counter the negative effects of mobile banking services that have taken a toll on traditional offerings.
While Zambia's central bank believes mobile banking is helping overcome the longstanding challenge of reaching out to the unbanked population in rural areas of the country, the UBA card is expected to penetrate rural areas faster than mobile banking. This is because it can be used by both the banked and the unbanked, and has already been recognised by the Bankers Association of Zambia as the most innovative card product.
The UBA entered the Zambian market in January last year, which was its first entry into the southern African market. The launch of UBA in Zambia brought to 15 the number of countries in Africa, including Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya, where it has a presence.
The introduction of the UBA card is, however, expected to ignite stiff competition in the provision of online shopping and payments, as MasterCard - in partnership with mobile operator Airtel - is already providing online shopping services via mobile phones to the unbanked.
People without bank accounts but with access to the Internet via mobile phones are already buying goods online, using MasterCard's new virtual cash card.
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