Electronic payment solutions provider, Interswitch Group has unveiled a new digital payment disbursement solution that enables financial institutions including banks, Savings and Credit Co-operatives (SACCOs) and digital lenders, corporates and government organizations to make mass payments to multiple recipients and beneficiaries at the click of a button.
The payment service christened “Autopay” enables organizations to perform one-off or recurring direct credit multiple payments to vendors, contractors, suppliers, and staff, across multiple banks and mobile wallets like M-PESA and Airtel Money in a timely and cost-effective manner.
“The platform is built to allow automation of payments like salary payments, loan disbursements, dividend payments, supplier payments, inbound remittance, last mile disbursements and farmers payments among other payments,” Interswitch Group Country Manager, Romana Rajput said in a press statement.
She said Autopay gives financial institutions like SACCOs and Micro Finance Institutions ability to enable their customers transact with customers from Commercial Banks, M-PESA and Airtel Money seamlessly from their accounts at very competitive rates.
Effectively, all banks, M-PESA and Airtel Money customers can thus receive payments from businesses that use Interswitch Autopay any day including weekends and holidays.
“Businesses will just need to log into an Autopay web-portal provided by Interswitch or integrate the Autopay APIs to their existing business systems like Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERPs), Mobile Banking, Internet Banking and Core Banking systems,” she added during the launch in Nairobi.
Ms. Rajput revealed that 32 business entities, including commercial banks, SACCOs and lenders have signed up on the product.
“We are targeting SACCOs, Banks, Credit Providers, Digital Lenders, NGOs, Remittance Companies and other Large businesses looking for a bulk disbursement solution for instance Insurance, Investment Banks, Agricultural farms among others,” Ms Rajput added.
The system automates existing manual payment process, helping organisations initiate, review, authorise and monitor payment processes with minimal human intervention. The web-based model is provided to businesses that currently do not have an existing channel of disbursing payments. These businesses may be relying on cheques or internet banking provided by their banks.
