:. Paydirect Dymystified .:

	April 23, 2004 Nigeria proud at Computer World Honors 21ST - Century achievement award May 18, 2004 InterSwitch and Microsft partners for e-commerce solutions

What is PayDirect?

Do you often receive payments for your goods and services from persons or organizations located across the entire country?

Do you expect payments to be made to your agency or institution from across the state or country?

Do you find it difficult to track and monitor payments made to your account by your clients (dealers, distributors, individuals)?

Do you think your payment process and turn around time to provide service or supplies can be improved?

You can now RECEIVE, MONITOR AND RECONCILE PAYMENTS, at just the click of a button.

PAYDirect has been designed to simplify collections of payment for goods and services, taxes and levies for states, ministries and departmental agencies at both federal and state levels.

PayDirect is a secure web-based solution that enables corporate organisations as well as government (State, Federal & Local) receive immediate value for payments. These payments are made conveniently by customers from any of the 24 banks in Nigeria. These payments are viewed immediately by the corporate organizations immediately from their offices and service can be given instantly or goods released subsequently.

PayDirect is not restricted to bank branch payments alone; payments can also be made from the Web (internet), ATM, Mobile phone, Point-of-Sale terminal, or Kiosk. Irrespective of the bank /branch or channel used, all payments made by customers, distributors or citizens are merged and presented to the corporate in a single view with explicit and adequate descriptions. Organisations simply need Internet connectivity to access the solution, to monitor and view their payments.

PayDirect provides answers to the following basic questions:
Who paid?
What was paid for?
Which bank was it paid into?
What amount was paid?
Who received the funds?
When was it paid?
How was it paid?
Where is the money now?

PAYDirect stores a history of all transactions and generates required reports which are downloadable and can be used for reconciliation. Payment reports are available by selecting a number of different criteria such as; dates, payee Identity, amount, bank, zone, payment item, payment ID, and customer reference numbers etc

PayDirect for Corporates (A Case study of Company X)

Company X is a Nigerian company in partnership with a South African Company.

Company X currently has about 120,000 customers across the entire country.

The Business/Payment Challenge
With the growth of its business, Company X began to experience payment challenges owing to the wide-spread locations of customers.
These difficulties include:
1) Centralized office location, making it difficult for customers to make payments for goods and services

2) Long queues of customers waiting to pay for goods and services in their customer service/retail outlets across the country.

3) Company X had about 5 banking relationships. The limitation of their spread within major cities Company X operated in.

4) Long reconciliation period between payment and delivery of goods and services.

5) Customer’s inability to make payments after office/banking hours, during weekends and public holidays.

6) Company’s X inability to monitor payments as they are made by customers, agents, and distributors in order to deliver goods and services.

7) Internal and external funds mismanagement

The Solution
Due to these challenges and the impact they had on Company X’s current and future business; it required a solution that would:
- Enable its customers make payments conveniently irrespective of the time or day

- Assist with the reduction of customer queues for payments at the various branch offices by increasing payment channels and options.

- Provide a full view of all payments in order to monitor its cash flow from the comfort of the office.

InterSwitch’s PAYDirect solution addressed ALL Company X’s listed business challenges in the following manner:
PayDirect:
- Provided alternative payment channels such as the internet, ATM, Mobile Phone, to Company X’s customers, agents and distributors.
- Drastically reduced the long customer queues at the various retail/customer care offices of Company X.
- Was integrated to Company X’s internal application so that customers got immediate access to goods and services upon making payments without calling any representatives.
- Ensured seamless reconciliation as payments are monitored and viewed in real time by Company X designated personnel.
- Enabled Company’s X customers make payments from of the 24 banks in stead of just five banks.

PayDirect for Corporates (A Case study of State Z)

State Z is a relatively large state with a population base of over 4 million people. A large percentage of the populace are civil-servants and the government generates revenue internally predominantly from taxes and levies.

The Challenge
Due to the growth in population, there has been an increasing need for infrastructural and economic development. The state has however continued to experience collection challenges due to the large dispersion of the citizenry and the manual process employed by State X for collections.

The difficulties experienced include:

1) Collection by multiple parties (Banks, Government Agents and revenue collectors) using disparate and separate processes and systems.

2) Disparate accounting processes without a consolidated view.

3) Difficulty in identifying payers and payment reconciliation.

4) Partial or zero remittance of funds collected to the state accounts.

5) Late remittance of the state funds to its designated accounts.

6) Difficulty in tracking payments made to the State.

7) Funds mismanagement due to cheque cloning and postdated cheques

8) Tax evasion, diversion and suppression by collecting agents

The Solution
Adopting a solution to combat these challenges was imperative for State Z.
InterSwitch’s PAYDirect solution solved ALL their difficulties with ease.

The solution:
- Enabled designated officers of State Z, view payments and their cash flow position across multiple banks from a single view from the comfort of their office.

- Enabled state Z track payments as they were made by citizens.

- Helped reduce all leakages, funds diversion, suppression and mismanagement.

- Provided the opportunity for revenue collection to increase-300% in less than 1 year.

- Ensured that State Z became more accountable for its revenues and expenditures

- Provided statistics on payment trends, revenue heads and MDAs that contribute to the internally generated revenue funds for the state

Through PayDirect, more funds are currently available for infrastructural and economic development, without extra taxes on the citizens.