FNB has partnered with BankservAfrica to provide a new way to send and receive amounts up to R25,000 between SA, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini.
The FirstRand unit said on Wednesday it had chosen BankservAfrica’s transactions cleared on an immediate basis system to process low value payments within the common monetary area of SA, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini in real time.
Traditionally, most FNB cross-border payments within the area were processed via EFT, but changes in compliance regulation forced the need “for a more compliant system”.
BankservAfrica, Africa’s largest automated payments clearing house, processes bank card, ATM and EFT transactions between the country’s banks as part of the SA National Payments System.
The company has been working for years to implement a system that will make it simple for people to send and receive money across borders within a short time. The movement of people and goods on the continent, and the encouragement of greater trade in the region, are creating the need for simpler, more affordable forms of payment.
In July 2021, BankservAfrica successfully processed its first real-time cross-border transactions between Zimbabwe and Namibia through its immediate payments service.
While international payments and receipts could take as long as five days to settle, BankservAfrica’s system has this down to just 60 seconds, CEO Stephen Linnell said in a media briefing.
FNB was the first SA bank to join the service, Linnell said. He expects the other major banks to follow suit in the next two years.
Financial services players have been fighting the use of cash for years, looking for ways to increase digital payment adoption.
As such BankservAfrica touts “the standout benefits” of the system as being “the speed of transactions and the lack of restrictions on time of use”.
Payments can now be processed in near real-time, even outside traditional banking hours, including evenings, weekends and public holidays. The previous EFT system was limited to standard banking hours.
“The transition to [the system] was an important step for us,” FNB Forex CEO Richard Porter said. “Our clients will experience a seamless, automated process for cross-border payments that feels almost identical to the EFT process they are familiar with, but offers significant improvements, including immediate payment clearance, low costs and high security features.”
Locally, BankservAfrica has been operating a real-time payments system, PayShap.
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