Interswitch Group unveils electronic mass payment solution in Kenya – KBC

Interswitch Group has rolled out a mass payment solution that will allow organizations to make mass payments to multiple recipients and beneficiaries at a go.

According to Interswitch Group, the payment solution dubbed Autopay targets financial institutions including banks, saccos, digital lenders, corporate and government.

Autopay is backed to deliver one-off or recurring direct credit multiple payments to vendors, contractors, suppliers, and staff, across multiple banks and mobile money platforms.

“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 many others,” said Interswitch Group Country Manager Romana Rajput.

Rajput revealed that 32 businesses entities, including commercial banks, saccos and lenders have signed up on the product.

“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 ERPs, Mobile Banking, Internet Banking and Core Banking systems,” she added during the launch in Nairobi.

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 but instead, rely on cheques or internet banking provided by their banks.

Businesses that currently have an existing mobile banking interface can be integrated to consume Interswitch’s transfer API.

“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,” Rajput added.

Autopay gives financial institutions like Saccos and MFIs ability to enable their customers transact with customers from Commercial Banks, MPESA and Airtel Money seamlessly from their accounts at very competitive rates.

It also enables companies to replicate signatory hierarchy of users within the application, access reports in real-time and process payments from their bank accounts to any beneficiary of their choice in all the banks connected to the Interswitch network.