ATM certification for Nat Switch ends March

The country’s commercial banks will by March end have completed certifying their automated teller machines (ATMs) to transact on the National Switch (Nat Switch), an official has said.

Nat Switch steering committee chairperson William Kaunda told Business News on Monday that by that time, card holders will have access to over 480 ATMs connected to the National Switch nationwide.

This follows the launch of Nat Switch—a shared switch platform which connects all the country’s banks—last month.

“Meanwhile, all ATMs certified to transact on the switch have a clear mark labelled member of National Switch.  When the certification process is done, cardholders will have access to over 480 ATMs countrywide,” he said.

Kaunda said ATM transaction fee on another bank’s machine will be at K120 per withdrawal while balance enquiry will attract a fee of K80 per transaction.

“It will no longer be necessary for each bank to site so many ATMs and PoS devices to achieve convenience and accessibility, which customers often seek when choosing a bank and banking services.

“This will allow infrastructure sharing between banks, thereby reducing the overall cost of the payments infrastructure in Malawi,” said Kaunda.

He added that Nat Switch will result in growing consumer confidence and acceptance of electronic payments in the country by leveraging the deployed infrastructure and provide a robust and efficient technology foundation for the development of a wide range of innovative payment systems and services.

Nat Switch is largely funded by the World Bank through part of a five-year loan amounting to $28.2 million (about K13 billion) under the Financial Sector Technical Assistance Project (Fstap).