Malawi: National Bank of Malawi introduces Visa debit cards

Partridge said the debit cards would allow electronic payment of goods and services using POS devices and also called on authorities to liberalise the process of the current foreign exchange control regime by enforcing an appropriate law so that the new payment instruments serve as domestic and international means of transaction.

He said the bringing in of the services will offer the public fast transactions within 20 seconds and there will be no need to count cash or verify cheques with bank supervisors at any pay point.

The CEO said they would also be taking the innovation to rural areas to help the central bank regulate excess liquidity in the economy which the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of Malawi fails to control.

“This is so because 40% of cash is out of the banking system; our statistics indicate that only 6% of the local population is banked and therefore the need to roll out to rural areas,” said Partridge who also chairs Bankers Association of Malawi.

He said even for merchants that operate from rural locations the services will be effective.

“The system will help merchants in cutting time,” said Partridge, “it will also provide a secure means of payment as all transactions are online, debit the card instantly, real time and are cash-based.”

The Visa debit cards have been divided into four types which the bank's project manager, William Kaunda explained, was to give a wide range of choices.

“We have Visa Electron, Classic, Gold and Platinum and we are currently installing more POS devices to increase accessibility of this type of payment system,” explained Kaunda.

He said 10,000 customers have already replaced their Money cards with Visa electronic cards and 100,000 would be issued by September.