Austin-based Mozido is acquiring a majority of NettCash, a Zimbabwe mobile wallet company. The NettCash pre-paid electricity solution is being extended by integrating Mozido’s Mobile Transaction Platform services, including mobile bill pay, stored value account, and person-to-person payment services, to launch Zimbabwe’s first mobile wallet that includes prepaid utility services.
Zimbabwe’s Steward Bank has rolled-out the first MasterCards in the country. The new MasterCard World Rewards credit and debit cards are targeted at cosmopolitan customers.
Zimbabwe’s Steward Bank is working with MasterCard to make international remittance services available to the bank’s more than 1.5 million account holders.
The Middle East and Africa segment of MasterCard’s Asia-Pacific-Middle East-Africa region (APMEA) exploded in 2013 with a number of new cards entering the market, proliferation of mobile payments and Shari’a compliant MasterCards. At the end of the third quarter there were 410 million cards issued in the APMEA region. Gross dollar volume for the third quarter was $410 billion. MasterCard will release fourth quarter and annual results on January 31 before the market opens.
Middle East and Africa segment of MasterCard’s Asia-Pacific-Middle East-Africa region (APMEA) iexploded in 2013 with a number of new cards entering the market, proliferation of mobile payments and Shari’a compliant MasterCards. At the end of the third quarter there were 410 million cards issued in the APMEA region. Gross dollar volume for the third quarter was $410 billion. MasterCard will release fourth quarter and annual results on January 31 before the market opens.
NMB Bank Limited (NMB) has signed an agreement to migrate its Visa credit card portfolio to TSYS “Prime 4” licensed card and merchant management solution. NMB will use “PRIME” 4 to manage its cards issuing and cash acquiring as it seeks to expand its range of card services for consumers and businesses. The “PRIME 4” solution is a multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-institutional and multi-product, single platform solution for issuers and acquirers.
Datastrip’s two-dimensional printed code has been selected for Zimbabwe’s new national social security identity card project. The technology will provide the country’s National Social Security Authority (NSSA) with a secure means of verifying the identity of claimants as they collect their payments, in a form which can be printed onto ID cards at very low cost, and which may be read in the field using portable off-line terminals.
The new project, which is scheduled to begin roll-out during April 1999, provides claimants with a secure means of identification to store name, ID number and NSSA code, together with other personal details, using a unique two-dimensional barcode. Initially, this data will be used with Datastrip’s off-line card reader which reads and displays the card’s contents on its integral LCD screen. This will allow the local NSSA agent to verify the identity of the claimant, if required, by asking a question based on the coded information. It is expected that this information will be supplemented by further data, such as a stored photo and a biometric template of either a signature or fingerprint, at a later phase in the project.
The NSSA chose Datastrip’s two-dimensional printed code because of the sheer cost-effectiveness of the printed code for such a large-scale application, and also for its durability, and inherent security compared with other 2D barcode schemes. The system is also capable of working off-line, a major attraction for the NSSA as it allows the ID scheme to be set up both quickly and economically.
The project is being managed by Silke Computers, the Harare-based systems integrator, who are providing the Datastrip cards and DSView card reader terminals, plus a card production system based on the DataCard 9000 printer and its Quik-Works ID card generation software with an interface to the NSSA’s database. Silke has been involved in numerous large-scale card schemes in Zimbabwe, including projects for banks, and a loyalty scheme for a supermarket chain.
“The Datastrip code allows governments to protect against fraud and to automate their procedures very cost-effectively,” said Patrick Gilmore, Datastrip’s Business Development Manager. “Such systems can also be configured and deployed extremely quickly, as NSSA’s application demonstrates admirably. This system has been designed and will begin roll-out within the space of around three months”.
“Flexibility for future upgrade and development is a key element of our design for NSSA,” added Silke Computers Project Manager Terry Miles, “and the Datastrip code supports that goal though its exceptional data storage density”.
A Datastrip is a two-dimensional barcode which may be added to a card or document in a printed format. In this application it will be used in the form of a 3-inch long stripe, which provides more than 1k bytes of data. This is enough for a text record, a photo, or further biometric templates, making it an extremely economical platform for automating government services and administration.
Another unique factor is the Datastrip code’s built-in security. Unlike other 2D systems, the coding algorithm is not in the public domain, and is post-processed to ensure that the same data results in different printed codes – making it extremely difficult to decipher. Additionally, this scrambling-like facility can be customized for a user to ensure that their Datastrip codes are unique, and can be read by only specifically-authorised readers – as is the case in this application for the NSSA. Data can also be stored in modular fields, making it easy to build multi-application cards which can be shared across government departments if required, with each field assigned a different security level, isolating each application.
The card reader that NSSA has selected for this application is the DSView. This is a compact desktop unit which decodes cards ‘on the fly’, as they are inserted, displaying the information on its integral LCD. It is planned to install the readers in up to 50 sites in Zimbabwe during 1999. In addition to working from any standard mains voltage, the reader will operate from a 12V DC supply, providing the flexibility to process transactions from an automobile, for example. The reader can be interfaced with signature or fingerprint verification peripherals, allowing automatic comparisons to be made by the standalone system.