Malawi ATM withdraws rise in April

Auto teller machine (ATM) cash withdraws made a significant increase in April with records indicating that a total of 9 865 cash withdrawals were made with a total value of K152.5 million.
The National Payment System report released recently by Reserve Bank of Malawi, (RBM) says in April, overall ATM net settlement amounted to K104.1 million over the same period.

The report attributes the strides to the National Switch (Nat Switch), a shared platform which connects the country’s commercial banks, banking operations and financial transactions through ATMs, POS devices, mobile banking, e-banking transactions, Visa and MasterCard gateway and over-the- counter transaction.
The switch has since its inception in February managed to migrate ATMs for six of the country’s banks in the just ended month.
This is complementing Nat Switch’s steering committee chairperson William Kaunda who said the switch brings a lot of efficiencies in the payments industry as transactions are switched through to another bank instantly thereby providing instant authorisation of such transactions.
The report further said there was a rebound in internet banking transactions during the period where transaction volumes increased by 185.5 percent to 31 418 in March 2015 from 13 107 in February 2015.
RBM said the value increased by 274 percent to K15.6 billion from K4.1 billion over the same period.
According to the report, average transaction value increased from around K112 000 to K513 000 over the period, attributing the resurgence in internet banking transactions in March 2015 mainly as a reflection of resumption of normal services by one of the main service providers who briefly suspended the service to allow for system upgrade.
The central bank says both large and retail payment systems continued to operate smoothly, allowing uninterrupted flow of funds in the economy during the period under review.
But despite the good performance, the monetary authority says the total number of subscribers for bank-led mobile banking fell by 14.6 percent to 316 277 in March 2015 from 370 201 in February 2015.
But in contrast, the volume of transactions increased by 6.4 percent to 1 442 010 from 1 355 789 whereas the value declined by 6.2 percent to K5.1 billion from K5.4 billion which led to a decrease in the average transaction value for bank-led mobile banking to around K3 500 from K4 000.