Africa-Press – Lesotho. ECONET Telecom Lesotho last week expanded its new Point of Sale (POS) system that works through its EcoCash mobile money platform. The facility was piloted at Enrich stores earlier this year and due to its success Econet is expanding the facility to many other local stores.
Local businesses like KFC, Stadium Fast Foods, Office National, Cafe What, The Market, Barcelos Pioneer Mall, Sefalana Liquor are the latest retailers to have this facility.
Econet’s Acting General Manager for Services, ’Matikoe Letsie, said facility is contributing to a cashless society. Letsie said the integration allows customers to pay for goods and services effortlessly from their EcoCash wallets into the shop’s merchant accounts.
“Businesses no longer have to pay for overtime after closing that was associated with reconciling day-to-day transactions,” Letsie said.
“Reconciliation is now an easy process as transactions are electronic and also fraudulent activities at the till are going to be eliminated.
” She said Econet had combined its systems with that of the shops to ensure a seamless and effortless shopping experience. While using the POS facility no card is needed to swipe at the till and everything is done on the mobile POS device.
All a customer does is to provide his or her Econet number and enter the EcoCash pin after receiving an SMS to confirm the transaction. Charges for using this facility remain the same as when using the pay merchant option.
The customer will then receive an SMS confirming success or failure of the transaction. “Our purpose is to offer convenience, increase security by reducing cash handling and fraud at the shops,” Letsie said.
She said that the plan is to avail this facility to many other businesses in various industries like pharmaceuticals, hospitality and transport sector.
“This is just the tip of an iceberg since our intention is to partner with more shops in the same manner,” she said.
’Matlhohonolofatso Setlaba, Communications Officer for KFC Stores, said their stores across the country are already using the POS facility.
“This facility is in alignment with one of our values that pairs speed with service as it enables fast payments thus reducing queues,” Setlaba said.
She said the POS facility had helped minimise the handling of cash for their delivery services. Lerato Masupha, the CEO for Pay Lesotho, said the POS facility is convenient, reliable and secure.
As a result, consumers must feel confident in using the facility and not worry about the security of their funds. “We have already held inductions with businesses to sensitise them about how this facility works in order to minimise scams and fraudulent activities,” Masupha said.
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