Switch to be Smart
SmartSwitch Botswana is an accredited payments service provider in Botswana. We provide technology which utilizes a financial “switch”, smart cards and a network of point of sale devices at merchants to take financial services and banking to the people of Botswana.
We offer our service and payment platform to banks to enable them to take banking to all areas in Botswana – something which has proved challenging to the banks in the past.
The system is revolutionary in that it does not rely on traditional brick and mortar banking as banking is done at retail merchants at the point of sale device.
The Botswana Government currently uses our system to pay social grant beneficiaries monthly food allowances onto beneficiary smart cards. The smart card is then presented at the retailer to make purchases of the food for the month. This has real benefits for government in that the cash element of payment is eradicated along with all cash related expenses and risks. Benefits for the beneficiary include being able to receive their allowance and spend their allowance at any of the 800 merchants countrywide.
The private sector use our payments system in order to pay salaries and wages as well as to provide employees with travel allowances as and when required. Payments are immediate and very cost effective. Employees using the system are given a virtual bank account and can once again per form transactions at any of the participating merchants countrywide.
SmartSwitch Botswana
SmartSwitch Botswana has been formed to introduce technology into Botswana which will revolutionize the way in which people do their banking. Not only does our technology improve the lives of the traditionally banked customer, but the technology also has substantial benefits for the under banked and unbanked sectors of the population in Botswana.
SmartSwitch's primary purpose is to deliver to banks an alternative method of banking that will allow financial institutions and service providers to provide a wide range of services to all citizens regardless of their financial position.
As part of a much wider roll-out of the technology, Botswana is aligning itself with the current trend in African countries to embrace technology which can have very positive tangible effects on the lives of people who have traditionally been excluded from participating in any aspects of banking whatsoever. For the first time they will be able to establish a banking history and they will be able to earn interest on their monies.
Biometric verification offers a highly secure method of preventing abuse of the card. Customers who have traditionally been forced to do all of their dealings in cash now have a facility (irrespective of their location and the possible lack of communications infrastructure) to deal financially without needing to handle cash (and avoiding all of its drawbacks).
SmartSwitch Botswana is the solution to a problem. Traditional banking in Botswana is expensive due to the traditional model of how banks service their clients. As a result bank charges are traditionally very high and large sectors of the population have no access to banking due to the associated costs. As such vast sections of the population have no bank account, do not earn interest and have very little or no access to financial services. Nor do they earn any interest on their hard-earned money.
In terms of the Government of Botswana's goals outlined in Vision 2016, Botswana strives to become the financial capital of Africa. In order to achieve this, the population must be taken along a path from a 3rd-world cash-based society to a 1st-world cashless society. SmartSwitch Botswana offers banks the facility to develop an innovative economy for the 21st Century, thereby also affording Botswana a large financial advantage over any other African countries looking to establish themselves as potential finance hubs of Africa. Cash is expensive, risky and outdated.
SmartSwitch is here to change all of that.