Coop-Bank Doubles ATM, PoS Terminals

Cooperative Bank of Oromia (CBO), registered in 2004 with an authorised capital of 300 million Br, has contracted Moti Engineering Plc for 26 million Br to double its automated teller machines (ATM) and point of sales (PoS) terminals.

The new terminals will be in addition to the Bank’s existing 39 ATM and 100 PoS terminals procured in two phases in 2015 and 2016 deployed in the Country that serves its 74,826 current card holders as reported in June 2017. The tender for the procurement was floated last October where only Moti and Computer Business Machines (CBM) local partner, were the sole bidders.  Moti, the winner of the tender, was established in 2006 with a registered capital of 100,000 Br.  The company has 200 staff working at 40 service centres spread across the country and has supplied 4,000 plus ATMs for other banks in the country.  CBM, the competitor, has been in business since 1989 with two offices in the capital as well as in Hawassa and Gonder.

Having only two bidders was a challenge for the bank, according to Aman Semir, vice president for Information Systems with the CBO.

“Unavailability of several companies engaged with supplying of ATM and PoS systems restricted us from having alternative bidders,” he told Fortune.

Aman also argues that the practice of using used machines must be encouraged in the country. He claims that the tax levied on used and new machines is equal so that it discourages companies from importing refurbished low-cost machines.

The research department of the bank is in the process of selecting spots to deploy the terminals, according to Mesfin Hunde, manager of bank cards at CBO.  Currently, the bank has over 3,482 employees working at 298 branches with four million cardholders.

“Transaction volumes within a specific area are considered in the selection of locations,” Mesfin told Fortune.

As locations are identified the bank will deploy the new terminals throughout the coming fiscal year, according to Mesfin.

“We will add 100 ATMs and 400 PoS terminals in the next year,” he said.

CBO’s new terminals will be integrated with Et-Switch, a system that enables cardholders to use any of the terminals available by paying five Birr service fees for every 1,000 Br in transaction. The Et-Switch was established in 2011 with 80.5 million Br paid-up capital in collaboration with all commercial banks and the central bank to integrated the operations of all ATMs and PoS operated by the banking industry. The total number of ATM cardholders in the country has reached 3.6 million last year, accounting for only four per cent of the total population.

Akalework Amede, Software Department Manager at United System Integrate, applauds the banks’ move to aggressively push ATM and PoS terminals. He also strongly suggests the banks work on expanding other electronic modes of payments.

“They should push hard on spreading the E-payment and Mobile-payment systems,” he said.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.