‘This was such a hassle before. With ZymPay I can now pay for my electricity in under a minute online and for a negligible fee.’
London January 2015: London-based money transfer and bill payments business ZymPay has launched a vital new direct payment service for Zimbabwe’s scattered population living outside the country.
Starting with the UK, customers will now be able to pay their electricity bills online and their recipient – in Zimbabwe – will automatically receive the meter-specific top-up token via SMS.
Very soon, the majority of electricity payments in Zimbabwe will be made by purchasing top-up vouchers similar to those for pay-as-you-go mobile phones. Electricity office counters and QikPay agents allow the purchase of these pre-paid vouchers. The customer enters the long number directly into their meter to top-up their supply.
‘This was such a hassle before,’ says Glorianne Francis, a Zimbabwean living and working in the UK. ‘Up till now I’ve had to transfer money home, get a friend or relative to take the cash to buy a voucher and then put in the number. With ZymPay I can now pay for my electricity in under a minute online and for a negligible fee.’
‘Electricity payments using ZymPay Advantage is just part of our fresh thinking on fairer financial services for African diaspora and their recipients,’ said Dakshesh Patel, founder and CEO of ZymPay. ‘We see unacceptable money transfer fees as a fair target, especially to Africa where the costs are on average double that of any other destination.’
To transfer even small amounts of money diaspora have been hit with exorbitant money transfer fees, added Mr Patel. ’ This is unacceptable and completely unnecessary in our eyes, not to mention highly inconvenient. Our fee is only £1.99 to cover administration costs.’
ZymPay’s Chief Marketing Officer, Nicholas Ricketts, added: ‘Once you put payments like this online you can really add value for customers, many of whom are paying the electricity bills for their relatives. Now they can pay online and in a couple of minutes their granny will receive a text on her phone with the top-up code. She doesn’t even need to leave her front room.’
‘Our service delivers a safe and fair way to send money abroad,’ explained Mr Patel. ‘We have adopted extremely high standards of end-to-end compliance for ‘Know Your Customer’ and Anti-Money Laundering, going way beyond current guidelines and practices. It means that we – and the institutions we partner with here and in Africa – have the greatest confidence in our systems.’
