On completion of its testing this month, Libya Oil Ethiopia Ltd is on board to commence its e-card fuelling system after it had changed its product packaging two weeks ago at the cost of 48 million Br.
The e-card fuelling service of the company called O-card, named after the first letter of OiLibya is a prepaid fuelling system in which the customer registers at the customer service department of the company’s head office and deposits money. O-card gives access to all services provided by the gas stations including fuel service, car wash, lubricant sale, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG ), and OiLibya mart.
Fin Serv Technologies Plc (Fetan Technologies), a local company, developed the software for seven million Birr. Oilibiya follows Total Ethiopia S.C. and National Oil Ethiopia (NOC) to launch e-card services, with NOC’s having arrived on August 27, 2015
All 41 gas stations in Addis Abeba will initially offer services through O-card free of charge, except for the initial registration fee. Two stations in Semera, Afar, and two in Bahir Dar, will follow soon, both sites selected for their proximity to Djibouti and Sudan, respectively.
Zekarias Wolika, Sales and Marketing Manager of OiLibya, says his company was late in introducing the system because of poor telecommunications infrastructure and the process of finding a software developer. While telecommunications infrastructure is still being enhanced, a software developer has been found, thus permitting the launch of the card.
At the shareholders meeting which was held in Addis Abeba in August 2014, the company decided to expand further and to open a lubricant blending factory, Adugna Dissasa, lubricant sales manager of Libya OiLibya said. It will add nine stations every year, increasing the number of its stations from 143 to 185 by 2020, Zekarias said.
“There is no special profit obtained by launching the system other than attracting customers to prefer OiLibya by increasing its accessibility. The system has also an advantage of controlling fraud by salespersons, to the benefit of both the customer and the company as it alerts to the quantity of gas and the kilometres it covers,” he added.
But the fact that the e-card systems are being launched has only the insignificant impact in bringing a cashless society, according to Abebe Girmay, project manager at BPC Banking Technology and Payment System consultant. Abebe said the new systems that are being implemented are not even e-card systems rather prepaid cards.
“There is no nationally integrated electronic payment scheme in the country. The systems are unilateral and scattered and according to the existing system if there are ten companies that develop the software the user should hold all of the cards to get services anywhere convenient for him/her because one card is limited to certain stations. In addition to this in the existing systems the physical money movement is still there because the companies are not connected with the customer’s bank account.” Abeba commented emphasising the importance of the establishment of a central switch that enables services on all terminals with one card.
OiLibya, which counts ethio telecom, transport companies and embassies among its clients, reports having 220 commercial customers and 25pc market share.
Libya Oil Ethiopia Ltd is a subsidiary of the Libya Oil Holdings Ltd, a Saudi Arabia based company with 22 subsidiary companies and 1,000 retail stations in 18 countries. OiLibya and NOC have announced plans to connect their e-card systems with bank accounts.
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