ELECTRONIC BANKING-Flash
Me Cash records N300million monthly
By Sun News
Monday, April 5, 2004
 |
Deji
Oguntonade, MD/CEO, First Atlantic Online Limited.
Sun News Publishing |
|
No less than 300 million transactions takes place monthly
on the Flash Me Cash platform, the electronic payment solutions
of First Atlantic Online Limited, a subsidiary of First Atlantic
Bank plc.
Deji Oguntonade, Managing Director of First Atlantic Online
Limited, who made this disclosure said over 220,000 Nigerians
use the Flash Me Cash platform to transfer money every month.
He said the beauty of the electronic payment solutions is
that a higher percentage of the transactions on the platform
is grassroots and petty money transfer.
“The bulk of the transactions on the payment platform
is grassroots – like payment for air tickets, school
fees, payment for goods and services, payment for services
rendered by artisans, etc.”
While comparing Flash Me Cash to other e-payment products
in the country, Oguntonade said the company’s mobile
payment solution has done better in terms of positioning and
brand building.
“Even though we are still very young in the market,
compared to others, who have done more than five years in
the local market, we have done better than them in terms of
positioning, even with limited capital outlay,” he added.
According to him, the potentials for e-payment products in
the country are very huge such that the present solutions
have not even scratched the surface of the market. He said
for the surface of the market to be scratched in desired manner,
a lot of awareness has to be created by the stakeholders in
the e-payment industry.
With the limited successes recorded by Flash Me Cash within
two tears of its operations, Oguntonade declared that the
best channel to deliver e-payment solution in Nigeria is mobile
phone channel. While admitting that all the available channels
(ATMs, smartcards, Internet, mobile) have their peculiar infrastructural
challenges, he insisted that the mobile phone still provides
the best access to Nigerians to do payment transactions.
On the ongoing deployment of self-servicing ATMs by banks
in the country, Oguntonade decried the bank strategies of
deploying ATMs by themselves.
“We don’t believe it is correct for banks to deploy
ATMs by themselves. We believe in the consortium approach
because banks do not have to own the ATMs.
“All what the banks should do is to pay service charge
to the ATMs operators or the switching companies,” he
added.
According to him, the likely approach First Atlantic Online
will adopt for ATMs is to participate in the ATMs consortium
at the right time but not as the owner or part owner of the
business. “Meanwhile our ATMs strategy for now is to
sit down and watch the market as it unfolds,” he added.
|
