Rwanda:Mobicash to usher in online shopping platform

AUGUST 24,2014.

RWANDAEYE.

 Mobicash is developing a platform that will enable every smart phone   user to shop, bank and pay online at their convenience, a move that is seen to give beef to the emerging online shopping business in the country.

With its open and interoperable ecosystem, the user will be able to download the application onto their phone and access several services that include online payment and shopping, gifts, pay bills, mobi-save account among others.

 “What the user needs is to download the application, open account with mobicash and then start a new world of convenience of doing all businesses and shopping online wherever you are,” said the Executive Director Mobicash Pascal Nyagahene,

Mobicash combines the banks’ electronic banking platform and the Telecom’s mobile money platform systems which gives it a competitive advantage in terms of providing a convenient electronic payment platform to users.

The MobiCash platform supports additional mobile payment functions such as bill or loan payment, ticketing, bank account integration, fidelity scheme integration, and microfinance.

“By combining proximity and remote transaction technologies MobiCash offers the most comprehensive mobile payments platform,” he added

This comes at the time the country is strengthening its take off to cashless economy that ushered in electronic shopping, an experience believed to  paint the country’s technology outlook positive and a credit that will push it to  middle income status.

“Our MobiCash offers a refreshing approach to mobile payment that overcome the challenges of cashless payment by using multi-factor authentication mechanisms (fingerprint, NFC, NSDT and voice biometric) technology,” Nyagahene added

How it works

A person does not need to have a bank account since every phone serves as a bank or stored value account identified by its phone number. MobiCash can be set up so that receiving a transfer automatically enrolls new users. Users can easily load accounts online or with agents, transfer funds to others, make online purchases, pay retailers and withdraw funds using their phone.

When a user intends to make a transaction and his mobile phone number is unknown by MobiCash (He has no internal account within MobiCash),MobiCash tries automatically to dialog with Back-Office Gateway using« MobiCash GW interface » protocol.

If Back-Office GW knows this user, the transaction can continue, as users get a response “Unknown user”.