Convenient payment options are a critical and often cited sticking point for commercial and economic development. Numerous discussions have taken place around the need for increased electronic payment methods as a means to overcome time, socio-economic, and logistical constraints amongst others. After playing the role of a scribe in much of this dialogue, Techzim has seen it fit to extend the conversation by way of an ePayments Forum.
On the 27th of November, various stakeholders centered around the sector will converge at the Sango Conference Centre (Cresta Lodge Msasa) to discuss progress, challenges and opportunities within the space. Presentations will be made by the following:
- Adam Roscoe (Zimswitch)
- Allen Saruchera (Zimra)
- Jacqueline Malaba / Taurai Tarugarira (Visa Southern Africa Innovation Team)
- Gary Griffiths (POS Africa)
- Francis Matseketse ( EcoCash)
Additionally, an interactive panelist session will take place post presentations.
By definition, ePayments covers plastic money (cards), mobile money, and internet banking. The event will take place with the support of Ecocash as platinum sponsor, Cardpro Africa as gold sponsor and silver sponsorship from the Payserv Group.
No fees to attend will be charged however the nature of the event is invitation only and targeted at relevant people within the banking, retail, wholesale, FMCG, support services, and hospitality sectors amongst others. Invitations have been sent out, however if you fall within the above or believe you are warranted to attend, then you can apply through epayments.techzim.co.zw
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4 comments
I think you should open up a 2 or 3 spots for the developer/entrepreneur community so that they can air their concerns and progress with epayments thus far. I totally understand why it should be an invite only event and so it should be. However, we have a number of promising initiatives in providing merchant tools for local merchants whose progress has been stalled because they never managed to get audience of either the EcoCash folks or the ZimSwitch folks. At the end of the day, the usage and success of these folks APIs and epayment tools will be a function of developer and provider adoption, which in turn can only be promoted through networking and trust establishment. Epayment remains backward because banks and MNOs don’t trust or know developers enough to open up their APIs to them. As long as the developers are not brought to the table, that will remain the case and nothing productive will ever come out. I pray the panel be expanded beyond these corporate entities.
How you could select the developer community reps? Well, i have a suggestion: get 1 team working on payments and one merchant trying to provide an e-commerce solutions to his/her clients. That way you hear the needs of both parties. Have all interested parties apply for these slots with prototypes/demos and then select one with substantial enough progress to join the discussion.
I would say start your own “ePayments Devcon” then invite the corporates. They will come because their market is really not each other.
Please invite Tawanda Kembo as well http://www.virtualbank.co.zw/ and other developers.
Lol. Why not just tell him.