4 April 2019 – By Charmaine Ngatjiheue on The Namibian

PAYMENT SOLUTION … Annette Ratheman, PAN chief operations officer. Photo: Contributed.

THE Payment Association of Namibia, in collaboration with local banks and payment service providers, will introduce NamPay, a new payment solution.

This solution will result in a major enhancement to the national payment system (NPS) for electronic fund transfers (EFT), and impact all stakeholders directly or indirectly utilising this service. This has been driven by a legislative need for greater efficiency in the processing of payments in the NPS.

The Payment Association of Namibia (PAN)’s chief operations officer, Annette Rathenam, said NamPay presents an incredible opportunity for Namibia’s NPS to be among the most technologically advanced on the continent.

Rathenam who was speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday said this will not only bring Namibia into the mainstream of the digitisation of national payment systems, but will add considerable value to all users of the NPS, and ultimately the Namibian public.

This NamPay solution will be comprised of three payment streams across debit orders (EnDO), credit payment transfers (EnCr) and near-real-time (NRTC) credit payment transfers that will transform all EFT processing in Namibia . The enhancement of the system is in response to a payment system determination (PSD-7) by the Bank of Namibia which requires efficiency in the payment system.

“Given the impact that NamPay will have on Namibia as a whole, all banking consumers will be transitioned from using the existing system to the new processing standard over the course of 18 months from the date of implementation,” Rathenam noted.

She added that PAN is not in a position to provide further details with regards to the migration of customers, but will continue to drive the awareness campaign of the new payment stream, and will ensure that an opportunity is created for frequent briefings in the public domain.

“In an effort to enhance and enable the NPS, PAN manages all industry projects through an industry project management framework, while promoting and managing stakeholder collaboration and cooperation.

The stakeholders involved in this enhanced EFT project include the steering committee members, electronic fund transfer participation group, PAN Management Council, the Bankers’ Association and the Bank of Namibia,” Rathenam added.