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BoT pledges to ease mobile money business
The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has provided an enabling legal and regulatory environment for a level playing field among mobile payment service providers while at the same timesafeguarding consumers to ensure efficiency and sustainability.
BoT’s National Payment System Director, Bernard Dadi told The Banker that the National Payment Systems Act, 2015, with its regulations such as Payment Systems Licensing and Approval, 2015 and Electronic Money, 2015, are used by the Bank to safeguard consumer protection.
Dadi also said that by 2015 mobile payment services had enabled the country to surpass its financial inclusion goal of having access to financial services to more than 50 percent of the adult population.
Speaking on the Bank of Tanzania’s challenges in controlling the mobile banking sector, Dadi said: “Most of challenges we face range fromAnti-Money Laundering (AML), Counter Financing Terrorist (CFT) to cyber-crime. However, our current legislations have addressed the mechanism to manage these challenges”.
He reiterated that as at the end of 2015, there were 49.3 million registered mobile payment services that accounts for 19.7 active users.
“Mobile payment services boost the country’s economy by providing revenue to the government in form of taxes imposed on the services and corporations providing the services. Also, the mobile money agents are forms of small and medium size enterprises which contribute to the growth of the economy,” he said.
“In addition, the remittances and micro-loans to support agricultural and other activities in the rural areas add to support the backbone of our economy,” he said.
“The only challenge in the use of technology is that it requires electricity which currently is not available in most parts of the country”, he observed.
He noted that with the cross-border mobile money transactions currently in place, more opportunities for business will be created for Tanzanian small-scale entrepreneurs.
“Interoperability is expected to go at a higher scale and hence bring down transaction costs and fair competition to service providers which will result in better quality services,” he said.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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