Zain boosts cash transfer service

• Mobile phone firm now adds three new products to Zap in bid to grow business

Zain Kenya has introduced three new products to its Zap money transfer service with the aim of benefiting small and medium enterprises as well as corporate clients.

The mobile phone firm has added Zap Distro, Zap Master Pay and Zap Tranzact to its menu in a move that is expected to heighten competition in the cash transfer market.

Zap Distro, a web portal tool, will enable dealers and large chains, which have other agents under their flagship, to manage their accounts.
Monitor deals

“It is envisaged that this tool will assist the distributors to manage better their Zap dealership businesses by enabling them to monitor their daily transactions, check their account balances, allocate and de-allocate money to their agents,” Zain Kenya managing director Rene Meza said on Monday.

Through the system, dealers will also be able to draw funds directly from their bank accounts and store them on their virtual Zap accounts as float for onward allocation to their agents network.

The cash transfer service is said to boast of more than 3,000 agents countrywide.

The Zap Master Pay solution, according to Mr Meza, will ease cash administration process especially for SMEs. This will enable organisations to send funds to up to 1,000 Zap accounts at a time.

“Master Pay is expected to reduce the cost of processing payments via cheque or other methods and also address the risk of transporting cash to and from the bank and internal fraud,” the managing director said.

Needs of players

The third service, Zap Tranzact, is aimed at meeting the needs of players in the service industry such as insurance companies and distributor enterprises as a remittance solution to enhance efficiency of the cash collection process.

Using the solution, organisations will be able to collect funds from their clients spread throughout the country. The money will then be transferred directly to their bank accounts. 

Mr Meza also said that an additional interface for merchants has been included on the platform to enable organisations collecting revenues through the Zap service to monitor customer transactions in real-time.

“Our key partners like Kenya Power and Lighting Company and MultiChoice Kenya, who have had huge success in subscription payment services through Zap, can now monitor their transactions online as well as bank reconciliations,” he said.