Banks in Botswana are experiencing a surge in retail sales on Visa cards following the launch of a new service based on 3-D Secure - the technology behind Verified by Visa - to authenticate remote top-ups of pre-paid mobile telephone airtime.
The PAYM8 service is available from Mascom, the largest mobile operator in the country, as a service called Direct Top-up 109. First National Bank (FNB) Botswana is the acquirer and is also taking part as an issuer, along with Barclays and Standard Chartered Bank.
Prepaid customers account for 95% of the 350 000 users of mobile telephony in the country and form around 20% of the population. They spend more than $85 million a year on their mobile telephone bills - which is around twice as much as current total POS spending on Visa cards. Research on the 109 service`s actively purchasing customers indicates that a substantial proportion of customers, 80%, are using a Visa Electron debit card, the remaining 20% a Visa credit card, to purchase airtime direct from their mobile phone.
Mascom, with the Botswana Visa members Barclays, Standard Chartered and FNB, are actively recruiting customers, encouraging them to become Visa cardholders and register for the service. To use PAYM8, consumers call a toll-free number and enter a personal identification number for account verification.
"Since the launch, we have seen 30% month-on-month growth in the number of subscribers using the service," says Joao Pereira, chief marketing officer of Mascom. "It is already very popular with 8 744 actively purchasing subscribers as at end October 2004, six months after launch. People really appreciate the convenience and, when we release additional services such as mobile bill payments and Visa card balance enquiries, we expect to see a continued upsurge in mobile banking transactions."
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