By: Audrey Raymonda John
Interswitch, a financial institution, on Wednesday 30th November 2022 held its maiden breakfast meeting in Sierra Leone.
The theme for the breakfast is “leveraging tech innovation for growth and profitability.” During the meeting, Interswitch awarded and recognized some of its partners.
The meeting took place at the Sierra Palms Hotel at Aberdeen Road in Freetown. The meeting brought together bank officials from across many banks in the country and key stakeholders from Interswitch. Local entrepreneurs were also in attendance.
Manager, of Sales and Account Management at Interswitch, Robinta Aluyi, disclosed that Interswitch was established twenty years ago, adding that Interswitch has been consistently providing cutting-edge solutions and leveraging technology to have an in-depth understanding of the revenue drivers and securing trusted partnerships and consistently bringing a platform that allows businesses thrive so that customers and partners can create their offerings.
For Sierra Leone, Aluyi revealed that they are looking around revolutionizing and automating the payment landscape, particularly around commercial banks, interacting, and micro-finance.
She furthered that Interswitch will be offering solutions around front-time processing, and enable card processing, open banking transactions, other payment types, shared infrastructure, and proving hardware and software solutions.
Aluyi added that Interswitch will also be providing cards to enable banks issues cards in a bid to reach out to the bank by providing a solution that will allow them seamlessly interact thereby ensuring that there is a seamless exchange within the ecosystem.
In terms of the relationship between Interswitch and the local banks in Sierra Leone, Aluyi disclosed that “we have 100% of the banks in terms of coverage and we have some of these banks in Sierra Leone where their affiliate branches are. She also mentioned that Interswitch has independent banks which it is partnering with. “The intent is to grow that network, increase the value offerings that we have, collaborate and corporate as required to ensure that we mutually grow and drive both within Sierra Leone,” she went on.
Chief Information Officer, Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB), Mory Konate, disclosed that Interswitch has been a leading partner of GTB, adding the relationship had been in existence for a long time now. “They have helped us on the drive for digital payment and card businesses in Sierra Leone,” Konate disclosed.
Konate added that Interswitch has the same vision as GT Bank to make sure that payment easy for all classes of society. “We are aiming to continue the partnership with them,” he revealed.
Managing Director, Inside Technology Sierra Leone, and a channel partner to Interswitch Limited, Dominique Lamin, told the press that there is a lot of services that Interswitch has which he said Sierra Leone can leverage on, such as the empowerment of skills and increase business transaction within the community, among others. “So far our partnership with Interswitch has been fruitful, excellent and transparent,” he concluded.
In terms of security of the technological systems that Interswitch will be using, Aluyi disclosed that their system is fraud-proof, adding that they have all the PCIs certifications to ensure that consistently, Interswitch provides fraud-proof solutions and ensure that their customers are comfortable using their solution suit.
Speaking about the services which the institution offers, Aluyi mentioned that they have fraud solutions as a service, payment as a service, core banking solutions, car issuances, and many more.