Family Bank in major pact with Paynet

By Macharia Kamau

Family Bank has signed five contracts with regional card processor and payments services provider, Paynet Group.

The partnership will cover Visa EMV Chip card issuing services, connection to PesaPoint network and sharing its own ATMs on the PesaPoint network as well as availability of M-PESA, Visa, China Union Pay and MasterCard acquiring on Family Bank ATMs. The announcement was made by the two companies at a Nairobi hotel and follows Paynet’s upgrade of its card issuing and processing platform.

 “This makes Family Bank the first customer for our EMV Chip card issuing facility, which we are offering as a result of the recent investment in our card processing platform,” announced Bernard Matthewman, Paynet Group CEO.

International card companies Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) have asked banks in East Africa and other card issuing institutions to migrate from the easy to counterfeit magnetic stripe cards and instead adopt the EMV chip cards, which feature higher levels of security as all transactions are PIN authorized.

“Taking the lead with EMV Chip and PIN based transaction authorization will go a long way in boosting the confidence of our cardholders by offering a more secure environment for card payments,” said Family Bank CEO, Peter Munyiri.  He added that the move would be important in growing the bank’s returns by minimising its losses through fraud. Card fraud perpetrated against the Magnetic stripe cards increased significantly in East Africa, according to a recent Deloitte report on security. This has affected cardholders’ confidence in making more payments using their cards. It is hoped that the introduction of Chip and PIN based transaction authorization with enhanced security features will greatly increase customer confidence and usage.

Munyiri noted that it’s strong history of providing reliable payment services in the region made Paynet the right partner.

In another agreement, Family Bank became the latest bank to join the PesaPoint network, Kenya’s largest third party ATM payments network.

The PesaPoint network, which also includes KCB, DTB, CfC Stanbic and NIC banks’ ATMs, will accept cards from Family Bank customers. Said Matthewman: “Once the service is live, Family Bank customers will be able to access cash, free balance enquiry, mini-statements and pay bills services at any PesaPoint ATM, POS agents and also at the clearly branded PesaPoint partner ATMs.”