“We’re extremely excited about mobilising these corridors at this time when remittance costs in the region remain concerningly high in spite of their importance to livelihoods and economies. We are hopeful that today’s development will change this and encourage people to use this service to send home money affordably and securely. The TCIB payments platform is the digital alternative for sending money almost immediately and at a low cost,” says Ruhling Herbst, Executive Head: Africa Business Development at BankservAfrica.

This development comes as the established payment service providers, South Africa’s SendHome and Zambia’s SamPay have become the newest participants in the TCIB Payment Scheme. By joining the growing TCIB network, instant, interoperable, low-value digital cross-border payments will be enabled to communities in these economies.

“As a channel of prosperity in our region, SendHome is thrilled to be part of these life-changing payment corridors. This is an opportunity for us to bridging borders in these markets and fulfil our customers’ dreams through TCIB’s secure payment platform,” says Peterson Tengende, SendHome CEO.

“With the increased pressure on budgets and difficulties in making cross-border payments to families and friends, SamPay has designed an essential payment solution which allows real-time payments to both South Africa and Zambia to emphasise simple, safe, cheaper payments immediately. This is the new chapter in cross-border payments,” says John Samaras, SamPay CEO.

“In the longer term, the enablement of this digital payments infrastructure and the multilateral agreements will have a positive impact on the network effect of the TCIB solution, and lower the costs of remittances and cross-border payments. As a formal, regulated and inexpensive solution, the TCIB solution ensures greater convenience and accessibility, encouraging economic participation and financial inclusion,” explains Tebogo Diphoko, Africa Strategic Business Development at BankservAfrica.

Unlike other retail payment systems operating in the region, TCIB is based on the principles of open-loop and cross-domain interoperability for processing low-value cross-border retail transactions by banks and non-banks.

“With the support from the SADC Payment System Oversight Committee, and as our engagements with key stakeholders in the SADC payments and banking ecosystem make great strides, we are looking forward to sharing more announcements for opening key remittances corridors to mobilise cross-border payments across the SADC region,” says Herbst.

SendHome and SamPay customers may contact their respective service providers to find out more about this cross-border payment service.

Source: TCIB