Zimbabwe in Talks With India Payments Giant to Cut Costs

Zimbabwe’s central bank is in talks with the international arm of the National Payments Corp. of India to upgrade its payments technology as it seeks to cut costs and speed up transactions.

The talks with NPCI International Payments Ltd. could be concluded by Oct. 31, Governor John Mushayavanhu said in emailed responses to Bloomberg questions.

The company’s unified payments interface would be used to create common infrastructure allowing banks, mobile-money operators, financial technology and other payment providers to connect and process transactions in real time, he said.

Governments across Africa are expanding digital payments to lower transaction costs, bring more firms into the formal financial system and reduce reliance on cash.

Benefits of using the technology could include the creation of new financial products and making it easier for banks to more cheaply extend services to merchants, while account-to-account transfers could reduce reliance on cards for low-value domestic transactions, the governor said.

The system could also give the government more reliable data on small and medium-sized businesses, allowing their contribution to the economy to be measured more accurately, he said.

More than 700 banks use NPCI’s UPI, capturing nearly 49% of real-time payment transactions globally.

Further down the line, Zimbabwe may use the UPI for cross border and remittance payments, Mushayavanhu said.

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