South African community shops to get NFC payments using stickers

South African consumers will soon be able to make payments using an NFC sticker on the back on their mobile phone via a service launched by mobile financial services provider MobiCash and mobile payments platform Boloro. The service will be available at “tens of thousands” of small-scale spaza or community shops served by wholesale giant Big Save Group.

Big Save Group“MobiCash’s partnership with Boloro allows small scale retail businesses to offer secure, consumer friendly, handset agnostic, merchant initiated payments using MobiCash multi-factor biometric authentication together with Boloro’s secure PIN authentication that uses Network Initiated USSD (NIUSSD) messaging,” MobiCash says.

“A customer walks into merchant store and loads basket/trolley with goods. The customer walks to the checkout point. Cashier scans all the goods for payment and total is displayed. Cashier asks customer how they would like to pay. Customer responds with MobiCash-Boloro. Cashier selects MobiCash-Boloro Payment on her till payment system and opens the interface.

“The cashier presents an NFC reader to the customer. Customer taps the MobiCash-Boloro sticker on the NFC reader — at this point, the platform triggers a NIUSSD session. Customer receives a NIUSSD message requesting them to respond with their PIN on their mobile handset.”

Cash replacement

“The customer responds with the correct PIN. As soon as the correct PIN is entered, the NIUSSD session closes on the customer device and the merchant transaction API details are passed on to the MobiCash-Boloro platform which then debits the customer account with the transaction value. Customer receipt is printed by the cash register and the transaction concludes,” MobiCash adds.

“First roll-outs are expected this quarter with aggressive plans to ramp-up reach and impact over the next several months as more stakeholders join the ecosystem to offer financial services for the population at large.”

“Our challenge has always been cash replacement in a cost-effective way and I am happy to see that Boloro South Africa with MobiCash have been able to devise a financial model and present an ecosystem network that we will be rolling out across our entire spaza member community,” says Johnny Jardim, financial director of Big Save.

“Delivering financial dignity to every human being is a person goal,” adds Ann Camarillo, co-founder, president and CEO of Boloro. “I believe, with our partners, we can democratize financial access for disenfranchised communities, offer secure payments and resolve the pain-points associated with carrying cash.”

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