Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) has expressed concern over what it has described as poor service delivery on Point of Sale (PoS) devices and automated teller machines (ATMs).
In a statement on Monday, Cama Executive Director John Kapito said poor service had become a humiliation and an embarrassment to consumers as well as traders.
According to Kapito, consumers are finding it difficult to transact using digital payments which are facing a lot of challenges due to poor infrastructure such as poor internet connectivity and failure to dispense money.
“Digital payment systems especially PoS and ATMs are meant to improve speed for digital financial transactions and, on top of that, they are meant to maximise total security protection for both consumers and traders and, above all, create a cashless digital market and reduce the cost of printing cash paper which should benefit both the consumer, trader, government and the banks.
“It is therefore sad that both the banks and government are unable to take advantage of this innovative technology to capture the many unbanked consumers,” Kapito said.
The Cama chief said what is more frustrating when using PoS, ATMs and other financial payment platforms is the number of failed transactions to have a service and the time and pain the consumer undergoes to have the failed transaction reversed.
He observed that this is worsened by poor customer care at call centres.
According to Kapito, it is costly and frustrating moving from one ATM to the other, only to find all the ATM’s out of service.
“It is surprising that despite the supernormal profits that the banks are making every year, they are unable to invest in latest and functioning ATMs and the provision of better internet facilities including better working call centres.
“It is extremely difficult to register a complaint with the banks and expecting to get a quick response, especially when the consumer is looking for reversals on failed transactions and this is worsened by staff members of the banks who are generally born rude towards the many poor consumers who are victims of poor banking services,” Chakwera said.
But Bankers Association of Malawi (Bam) Chief Executive Officer Lynes Nkungula said the banking landscape in Malawi has made strides.
She said while, Malawians would want to have ideal operations, some distractions are inevitable.
According to Nkungula, the banking industry in conjunction with Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) came up with National Switch Limited solely for interoperability so that customers in the country should be able to access ATM services despite their bank’s absence.
“The banks have made heavy investment in infrastructure just to serve the Malawians better. This is a continuous process as the sector is evolving every day.
“On digital payments, Malawi is not living in isolation but in a global community whereby we need not to stay behind. The country connects with different countries be it in trade, tourism, health and others,” Nkungula said.
On failed transactions, Nkungula said banks used to have problems with the issue but now they have improved tremendously.
She said banks are on instant reversals and others might take less than 24 hours.
Nkungula was, however, quick to note that there are some cases that would require one to go to their bank.
“All banks are open to receive complaints from their customers, it is through these complaints that banks would serve their customers better. Each and every service centre has a manager who makes sure that operations are smooth. These managers are there for customers and all customers do have access to these people.
“All banks have a reputational risk to protect, and different interventions are put in place to make sure that customer service delivery is without complaints,” Nkungula said.
She added that banks have value chain service providers and one of them is the internet facility.
“Again, this is a heavy investment, and all the banks have two providers for this. We all know that, recently, service providers, particularly in Africa, were affected due to the under-ocean fiber optic cable failures. Even beyond, banks entirely rely upon the service providers to give reliable internet access to all.
“All bank customers are advised to continue using the payments channels in Malawi as these are reliable and safe. Banks will continue to invest in infrastructure for better service delivery. We encourage customers to use all alternative channels,” Nkungula said.
