Interfile, the company behind the South African Revenue Service’s eFiling platform, sees growth opportunities in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.
So says Kennedy Chinganya, newly-appointed Interfile CEO and executive vice-president (EVP), in an interview with ITWeb following his appointment.
An ICT industry veteran with more than 20 years’ experience, Chinganya was appointed as Interfile’s CEO and EVP in May, taking over from interim EVP David Harwood.
Interfile builds and operates fintech solutions, including the creation of the eFiling platform in 2003. eFiling has become SARS’s flagship service, among key digital transformation projects.
The company offers citizen-centric and business process solutions for national government departments, municipalities and large private sector organisations in SA, providing a municipal services payments platform to the cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane.
Chinganya told ITWeb that revenue collection is a priority for every country and he foresees tremendous potential for Interfile to expand and apply its model to the SADC region.
“Looking at our flagship projects…nothing stops me from going to Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland [eSwatini] and into Lesotho. Even just the surrounding SADC countries, there’s opportunity to go and explore how to yield those opportunities.
“When you consider revenue collection in municipalities, every minister of finance and National Treasury – all they want to see is that wallet expanding. For me, the growth opportunity is big.”
He explained there has been a lot of public sector digital transformation over time, particularly in developing and operating secure, scalable platforms that aim to improve service delivery, streamline administrative processes and enhance the citizenship experience. For example, the eJoburg rates and taxes platform is one of Interfile’s products, he revealed.
“The smart cities is part of the project that is called EBPP – electronic bill presentment and payments – where you are driving the digital transformation of billing. You allow the organisations to present an invoice, receive payments electronically, replacing the traditional paper-based billing processes with a digital experience.”
Interfile’s EBPP suite includes eTshwane, another municipality in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and the Unemployment Insurance Fund’suFiling, he stated. “Smart cities are our bread and butter.”
Altered state
The formerly privately-owned business was sold to Canada-headquartered Harris Computer Corporation in November 2023. The Interfile sale marked Harris’s first acquisition in Africa.
Chinganya noted he has been managing the transition from a privately-owned to corporate-owned business since taking office, ensuring the necessary stability.
Within the timeframe of the sale, there has been exchange of hands twice, he said. “The first part of it is that the business was being looked after by a team that sat in Canada. From July last year, it was moved over to a team that sits in the UK. When they [Harris] bought it, they put in an interim CEO who resigned in December. The UK brought in an interim CEO in January, up until I took over.
“The changes over the last 18 months brought a lot of uncertainty with people – and staff get a bit jittery. Coming in, I now need to bring everything together.”
He said the company initially had about 158 people, and has about 156 now; a number he sees growing.
According to Chinganya, key among the skills the company looks to boost is the team of developers.
This is why having the Harris muscle will help the company leverage not only in-country skills, but these can also be borrowed from the UK or Canada, developing something the firm can take to market.
“We need developers…when I go and sign a deal with the City of Cape Town, for example, and say that I will deploy the electronic bill presentment and payments solution within stipulated timelines, I’ll need to deliver the registration module, the dispute module, etc, and will therefore need certain competencies.
“Within Interfile South Africa, I have about five people but will probably need a senior developer for the specific module, allowing me to reach out to one of the colleagues outside South Africa.
“I’ll need business analysts, quality assurers and people that will do user acceptance testing. These are the critical resources that I need to capitalise on, and leverage best-practices from other Harris companies.
“This will speed up the project milestones,” he added. “At the same time, we will be able to close those projects quicker and enable customers to increase their revenue quicker than what they’ve experienced before.”
GenAI advantage
Turning to generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on the business, Chinganya said developers can use GitHub and Copilot to speed-up the development process.
“AI is going to allow us to go to market quicker and more efficiently; we are going to become much more agile.
“When municipalities are collecting money…everyone is talking about how to digitise and remove paper; we are looking at AI to help us bring that closer to home, so that digitising of invoices isn’t just about removing paper, but reimagining customer engagement.”
Interfile does business with the City of Tshwane, City of Joburg, the Department of Home Affairs, Netcare and the KZN municipality. Chinganya wants to increase the customer portfolio in the short-term.
“I don’t want to be comfortable with just those customers. I want to increase the customer base, because I want to de-risk the small revenue concentration risks for customers.”
Share