Established in 2003, RSwitch is the national e-payment switch of Rwanda and driver of the SmartCash brand enabling electronic payment settlements, interoperability, and other financial solutions in Rwanda. The company has been the backbone of Rwanda’s transition to a cashless economy. The New Times had an interview with Ntare Niyomugabo, the RSwitch Head of Core systems and switching who outlined the milestones of the institution as well as their ambition to make sure people transition to cashless with full confidence in the safety of their money. Excerpts Upon starting as R-Switch, what were your targets? RSwitch is a National Switch, with a vision to connect all east Africans to all their e-money using the latest technology. RSwitch started by serving the local market by providing switch services to different banks and micro finances, Bank card production, card management, ATMs and POS driving, ATM monitoring, ATM maintenance, international scheme processing and so many other services related to bank card payment. In addition to the above, we are now venturing in mobile payment processing where we shall be interconnecting all local e-wallets and mobile banking payment platforms. How far have you gone in as far as achieving your set targets? A vision is something you work-on continuously with aim to achieve it. We have a dedicated, skilled, and professional team with a clear understanding of our vision and mostly the payment industry. We always strive to improve our services and innovate to be able to achieve our goals. So far, we have managed to interconnect all local banks where a SmartCash cardholder from any bank can transact from any local bank’s terminal (ATM, POS); we are Visa, MasterCard and UPI certified Third Party Processor which position RSwitch to the international standard and allow us not only to store and process local banks’ international card data but also servicing any bank from any country in the region. As we speak, we have promoted a central hub system that will interconnect all local e-wallets and mobile banking platforms; it is up and running with two Institutions already connected for person to person instant transfer and with aim to integrate at least two to four payment service providers (PSPs) every month as well as deploying other use cases including Person to Business, Bulk payment and person to Government throughout this year. This hub system shall enable all e-wallets and bank accounts holders to transact digitally and instantly among them. The journey towards a cashless society won’t stop in our country only, we are in touch with different regional stakeholders in the digital payment space for us to move further and work to enable our fellow Rwanda residents to transact using their local e-wallet in the regional networks. Still, as part of our innovation journey, RSwitch is upgrading its perso-bureau and chip application to a dual (contact and contactless) interface. The ongoing upgrade will enable RSwitch card scheme (SmartCash) to expand its network where not only will it be accepted on terminals (ATMs, POS) but even by online merchants. How have the numbers of payment cards scaled up and how has their access to banks increased because of your services? So far, SmartCash cards (RSwitch payment card scheme) cover a 30% market share of all payment cards (local and international) currently used in Rwanda. We believe that with a new dual interface card with additional features we are currently launching and new deals we are working on with different partners (in the payment card industry) to enable SmartCash Card to transact not only locally but even out of Rwanda, we will expand our acquiring network and attract local and regional bank’s attention which shall definitely increase SmartCash Card issuance. On top of bank payment cards, we have also embarked on non-bank card issuance where RSwitch issues loyalty cards used for payment on different petrol stations, supermarkets, among others. We are also currently proving ‘tap and pass’ cards that are used by different institutions. What about ATMs, how have they also been scaled up? With the current Rwanda’s journey towards a cashless society, banks have reduced the number of ATMs on the market and increased the deployment of POS terminals across to enable cardholders to pay for goods and services. RSwitch as a Payment Operator plays a big role in offering to all financial service providers a secure terminal-driving application as a service, administrating and monitoring Bank’s ATMs and POSs. In addition to this, RSwitch offers a card management application system as a service that enables financial service providers to issue payment cards to both local (SmartCash) and international (visa/MasterCard/UPI) users, and get accepted all over the world. Still, on the processing side, RSwitch is bringing on the market a payment gateway application to support online merchants who have exponentially increased during this Covid-19 pandemic period where many online retail stores emerged. The said Payment Gateway offered by RSwitch will facilitate the online payment site where clients will be able to pay from the comfort of their homes or offices using SmartCash card, Visa, MasterCard, MoMo, and Airtel Money and get the purchased goods/services. RSwitch’s services are not limited to payment cards only. We have now launched an instant and interoperable digital payment system (e-Kash) which will basically be a hub for all local Payment Service Providers operating in the Mobile Money Services space. Where, a client from bank/Mobile Network Operation (MNO) A will be able to instantly send/receive money to a client from Bank/MNO B (P2P), and a client from Bank/MNO A will be able to instantly pay a merchant registered in Bank/MNO B (P2B), A Client from any Bank/MNO will be able to instantly pay government services (P2G) and the government will be able to instantly pay/send money to multiple citizens (G2P), among other services. Besides the payment processing services, RSwitch is a SmartCash card scheme owner produced and personalized locally in its PersoBureau which makes it a made in Rwanda product and the cheapest product with all features needed by almost all Rwanda residents. Tell us about your interoperability journey of connecting Mobile Money platforms by the different players on the Rwandan market and when we should expect to achieve it? Correct, we have now lunched the interoperability system with main two Payment Service Providers issuing e-wallet services in Rwanda. With this deployment all their wallet subscribers are able to instantly send and receive money from one PSP to another and aiming to integrate with at least 2-4 PSPs every month. The beauty of such hub system implementation is to allow Payment service providers to open up only one connection to the central hub and have access to all connected Payment service providers, as opposed to the current bilateral connection where you find one payment service provider having multiple connections to multiple banks and MNOs which to my understanding is technically and financially too expensive; The same integration enables individuals, businesses as well as government to pay or get paid instantly which improves efficiency. This journey does not stop here. We are currently in talks with global players in the digital payment space to enable Rwandan residents to pay or send and receive money instantly using their local e-wallets out of the country. This will definitely increase the security and comfort for users while traveling out of Rwanda and will definitely facilitate people in the import-export sector business. How have your services contributed to the evolution of a cashless economy in Rwanda? RSwitch as a Payment Service Operator, our mandate is to facilitate and sensitize the public to use digital money. We are doing this in implementing/building up-to-date and secured infrastructure to support financial institutions to reach out to their clientele in operating, managing, and monitoring their POS machines and managing their clients’ card base. On top of these services, RSwitch facilitates card and mobile payment interoperability between all local financial service providers where a client from any Bank/MNO is free to transact in any network of another bank/ MNO. All this greatly contributes to the journey towards a cashless society promoted by our country. What has been the impact of the governments investment in your firm? The investment of the Government of Rwanda in RSwitch has had a tremendous impact not only on the material side of things but the credibility side as well. Although RSwitch has a private company status, our aim is to facilitate and support the public in the payment space without necessarily putting revenue first unlike fully privately-owned companies do. This has only been enabled by government investing in our firm. What is your message to Rwandans regarding the services you provide? The message we have to Rwandans is simple…let’s be cashless. RSwitch is and will always be there to support in any query related to electronic payment. We believe in electronic payment, and we guarantee the security of your e-money.
