Mycomax

InterSystems partner Mycomax pioneers banking system for the "unbankable"

Mycomax, an InterSystems Application Partner, has launched SureCard, an innovative way to provide banking facilities for the millions of "unbankable" people in South Africa, helping low-income people to conduct their financial transactions with dignity, in a safe manner and at a vastly reduced cost relative to traditional banking methods.

The company has developed and deployed on InterSystems' Caché post-relational database a banking system via the South African Bank of Athens, which allows people earning less than the minimum required by the major banks to open and maintain a bank account.

The system brings the bank to the people, instead of the people having to go to the bank. For example, cardholders can access a service point at a spaza shop in a township via a cashless system using an ATM-like facility, present the slip to the shop-owner, and get paid out the cash amount reflected on the ATM slip.

Not only is this convenient for the banking client, who does not have to travel into a town or city to withdraw cash, but it also helps the spaza shop owner dispose of some of the cash generated from a single day's sales. It is also safe, as the cardholder does not have to retain large amounts of cash, as would a person who does not qualify for a bank account.

The system uses the Caché database from InterSystems, chosen because of its reliability, scalability, robustness and ease of deployment, particularly in the banking environment.

The mastermind of Pieter and Johan Botha, respectively CEO and COO of Mycomax, the SureCard is Saswitch-enabled and supported by the South African Bank of Athens, allowing clients to conduct transactions at any bank.

The South African Bank of Athens is a subsidiary of the National Bank of Greece, one of the 100 largest banks in the world and larger than the combined two biggest of the big four in South Africa, says Pieter Botha.

Johan Botha says: "We are focusing on areas where the other banks are not interested. We are providing the tools to service this market safely."

Working in a similar manner to the spaza shop, cardholders present a slip to any bank counter, which then gives the client the cash equivalent reflected on the slip.

Explaining how it works, Botha says the product is based on a front-end called QuickMoney, which communicates with the Caché database, which in turn manages the realtime and batch processing of transactions.

Pieter Botha says the SureCard gives clients fully functional transactions linked to a savings account. "Customers simply pay their salaries into the account and can go to any Saswitch-linked ATM nationwide and draw their salary. There is no cheque facility or credit card availability. This is not a transmission account, but a final bank account. Clients can gain access to debit orders, stop orders and other such facilities, as well as all electronic transactions.

Johan Botha says Mycomax was founded in 1991 as a software development house focused on developing products for niche markets, such as those for attorneys, state prosecutors and municipalities. It first entered the financial switching market in 1996. Between 1997 and 1998 it developed a relationship with BOE doing financial transaction switching.

In 1999, when legislation changed in the banking sector, it developed the back-end for an ATM card for the "under-banked or unbanked" sector with Saambou, called the Q-card system. With Saambou being put under curatorship and its subsequent receivership, Mycomax developed a relationship with the South African Bank of Athens to continue providing these services, rebranding the product as SureCard.

Johan Botha notes: "The primary concept is to develop a lower-end banking system for use throughout Africa. This system is perfect for smaller banks to use and has untold export opportunities through Africa and other Third World countries on other continents."

Pieter Botha says Mycomax chose Caché because of its speed, reliability, connectivity, built-in redundancy, and excellent local support. "During the first month we went live with Caché, our uptime was 96% - the 4% downtime was not due to Caché. In our second month the uptime increased to 99,2%. In the past we struggled to have reliability above 85%.

"It is important in this line of business that when the volume of transactions is high the system should still be fast and reliable. We have been achieving that with Caché. In the past we particularly had problems during busy payday periods, for example - that is now something of the past. Now our statistics compare favourably with what is achieved by the big four banks in South Africa.

"We receive statistics on a daily basis of how we compare with transactions conducted by the major banks - and we are there, albeit on lower volumes."

He says before Saambou collapsed, the system had 60 000 active accounts. Much in the way Saambou's online initiative, 20twenty, didn't lose many subscribers, but thousands of client accounts became inactive, SureCard suffered the same fate. The company has embarked on an intensive marketing campaign to win back all those clients. The drive to win these clients back was also a primary consideration in its choice of Caché.

"Caché can accommodate higher volumes and transaction processing requirements than its competitors, because of its speed of processing. We completed the switchover from the previous system in a month, while conducting realtime transactions with clients working off the previous database. Caché delivers a far lower cost of ownership in terms of software, hardware and people costs."

The company services 800 points nationwide, many in rural or township areas, right where its target market is. Future plans include the rollout of fully fledged ATMs, including standalone and lobby units.

Mycomax has also forged a deal with MTN to provide top-up contracts for specific cardholders using its service points, a facility not usually available for this market. Specific cardholders can qualify for a contract limited to a certain amount of credit deducted from the account at the end of the month. These account holders receive loyalty benefits not offered to normal "pay-as-you-go" cellphone subscribers, and they can top up their credit at any time of the month. This system also runs on the Caché database, as does the telephone banking system already available to account holders.

Henry Adams, country manager for InterSystems SA, concludes: "For two years we have been saying Caché is an Africa-friendly technology. It allows people to develop, deploy and support world-class solutions at a low cost of ownership in an African paradigm. This system from Mycomax is a perfect example of that.

"It displays the InterSystems database's reliability and performance, our willingness to conduct testing, provide training and get our customers to be totally comfortable with our product first before we ask for one cent."

www.mycomax.co.za