Business
Alaric Technology Underpins Jamaica Mobile Money Launch
Press Release
Alaric is working with Transcel on a Development Bank of Jamaica project to create the infrastructure to deliver mobile financial services to the financially under-served segment of the population in Jamaica.
The Mobile Money for Microfinance (M3) project will leverage the channel of a Development Bank of Jamaica-approved microfinance institutions (MFIs) to provide consumers with the capability to carry out low-cost person-to-person mobile money transfers and payments. Transcel will provide the microfinance institutions with facilities to mobile-enable, streamline and integrate lending, borrowing and repayment processes.
The National Commercial Bank (NCB) in Jamaica, a principal partner in the M3 project, will provide debit cards linked to M3 accounts, allowing the consumers to access their money through an Automated Teller Machine (ATM/ABM) or a merchant with a point of sale (POS) device.
In the Transcel M3 platform, deployed for the Development Bank of Jamaica, all bank integration and financial transactions are implemented within Alaric’s transaction processing framework. Alaric’s Authentic and Fractals products will perform account opening and transaction validation checks, manage the balance of those accounts, provide authorization of mobile transactions and synchronization with NCB card services switch, and deliver full fraud detection and prevention functions.
In Jamaica, as in many other countries around the world, there is a large unbanked population which has limited access to traditional financial service providers and is typically forced to conduct all transactions in cash. They have to physically store or carry their earnings or remittance receipts, leaving them vulnerable to crime. Lacking access to regulated lines of credit, they are subjected to questionable practices of local money lenders.
“We are committed to bringing more citizens into the formal financial system,” said Milverton Reynolds, Managing Director of the Development Bank of Jamaica.
“The role of the Development Bank of Jamaica at the heart of this transformative project ensures that many who have been previously excluded will finally have access to modern financial services and will be able to manage their money in a secure, regulated environment. The involvement of a company such as Alaric, whose payments and transactional security products are used by some of the largest financial services companies in the world, gives us confidence that the transactions on the M3 platform will be safe and free from fraud. This will pave the way for all parties to confidently embrace the convenience and cost-effectiveness of mobile financial services – with all the spin-off benefits to business, consumers and the economy as a whole.”
