There are excellent payment services available in Africa and now most customers prefer an online payment transaction as it is completely safe, secure, and fast and requires no paper proceedings or any paper formalities. It saves time and provides fast services to the customers and satisfies them completely. There are different types of payment services available and all the payment transactions can be done digitally very easily. The ETF (Electronic Transfer Fund) transactions are also known as the pin-debit transactions or online transactions which provide as the best alternative to the signature debit transactions.

Different Ways of ETF

There are different ways of Payment Processing Systems in Africa which refer to the moving of funds between the accounts electronically and it can be done through wire transfer, debit card, credit card, direct debit, etc. Different ways of transferring funds electronically are as follows:

Credit Card/charge card/check card: It is a form of fund transfer done electronically which uses a network of institutions/banks to transfer the funds between accounts. The information used here is credit card number and the credit card has various features associated with it as follows:

• A financial institution extends one type of credit to its account holder which can be said as a kind of loan.
• The charge card is the same as a credit card, but it is different in the sense that the account must be paid in full for the duration of each statement.
• The check cards are similar to the credit card.
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Direct Debit /ACH Transfer: This type of ETF is compared to an “Electronic Check” and the information used here is a 9-digit bank account number and street number.

Wire Transfer: This type of fund transfer is initiated by an account holder for transferring money from one account to the organization. It directly aligns with the account holder’s financial institution.

Business/Personal Check: The personal or business check involves the paper check and there are essential information mentioned in the check like Bank Name, Account No., Date, Amount, etc. 

which initiates the electronic transfer of funds and next it follows the regulations of the debit card fund transfers.

There are also other modes of electronic fund transfer as follows:

*NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer): It is the easiest and most preferred mode of payment i.e. transferring money from one bank to another bank. Only two important information is required for NEFT i.e. Account Number & IFSC Code of Destination Account.

*Unified Payment Interface (UPI): It is also a real-time payment service that involves the transactions done through the smart-phone using the virtual payment address. In the UPI mode of payment, there is no need for any account details for transferring money through UPI.

*RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement): This method of fund transfer is similar to NEFT and differs from it minutely like if the person has to make payment of 2 transfers, then it can be used.

*IMPS (Immediate Payment Service): The best part of this mode of payment is that it can be used at any time. It can be defined as RTGS + NEFT and to avoid any fraudulent transactions, the cap on the limit of transactions is very low. For doing IMPS, the information’s required are Destination Account Holder & his Mobile Number.