A primary 3 pupil of the Omega School at Kasoa, Kwame, gave his school bag to an Airtel Money vendor at the school gate.
Within a matter of seconds, the vendor gave back the bag to him. Kwame entered the school.
This is how pupils pay their school fees at the Omega School at Kasoa in the Central Region of Ghana. Airtel Money’s Near Field Communication (NFC) stickers are fixed on pupils’ school bags which made it possible for them to pay their fees daily via their parents’ Airtel Money wallets when the vendor placed them on the payment machine.
Deductions are made immediately from parents’ wallets so they know when exactly their children got to school which, obviously, reduces truancy among pupils.
Also, because the fees are paid in installment on a daily basis, parents and guardians are saved from the ordeal of paying huge fees onetime every other term.
This is how the power of Airtel Money’s innovation has made fees payment and collection easier and more convenient to the parents, guardians, pupils and administrators of the school.
Airtel Money and the school are working to deploy this innovative fees payment system in all the 40 Omega Schools branches across the country.
Speaking in an interview, Alain Guy Tanefo, Chief Executive Officer at Omega Schools Franchise Ltd said, “Airtel Money’s NFC has helped us reduce the human elements in our fees payment system significantly thereby making it more efficient and effective, more convenient, easier and safer. We are working with them to deploy it in all our schools across in the country,”
Explaining why Omega schools take their fees on a daily basis, he said, “Omega Schools is an innovative Pay-As-You-Learn model – a chain of low cost private schools with specialized curriculum, assessment, technology and management modules that are benefiting the poor and empowering aspirations of low income families and their communities.
Our target beneficiaries cannot afford the bulk payment of termly fees so our system allows them to pay in instalment on daily basis. Our school at Kasoa charges GHC 3.00 per day.
The model has proven to be extremely attractive to parents, enabling its schools to be full within 10 days of opening. Currently the chain has 38 schools educating over 20,000 students and seeking to double that number in a year.”
On her part, Rosy Fynn, Director of Airtel Money who doubles as the Marketing Director, at Airtel Ghana said, “We are glad to do this with Omega Schools Franchise. Already, a good number of schools accept their fees through Airtel Money so school fees payment via Airtel Money isn’t new. What is new is the fixing of our NFC cards on pupils school bags so that they could pay their fees from their parents’ Airtel Money wallets.”
She explained, “As innovative mobile solutions provider, we are committed to maximizing the safety, ease and convenience with which our products and services come to solve the problems our customers encounter.
With this innovation, we are helping to control truancy among pupils, save time for parents and eliminate incidences of pupils dropping their fees on their way to school. To the school, we have provided the most efficient and safest way of collecting their fees.”
Since Zain, now Airtel, unlocked the mobile money market with ZAP in 2010, the innovative data space leader has consistently introduced several game-changing mobile banking innovations to enhance its products and services as an industry trendsetter with the ultimate purpose of providing its customers the safest, most convenient and easiest to use mobile products and services.
According to the Marketing Director, “Airtel Money has shown a lot of innovation, flexibility and security consciousness in its product offerings. The most recent being the introduction of ‘Tap and Pay’ near field communications (NFC) technology that provides easiest, fastest and most secured means to customers to pay for their goods and services with just a tap of their mobile phones on payment devices in shops.
The Tap ‘N’ Pay innovation positions Airtel Money as the smartest payment mode in Ghana since it helps customers to avoid the inconveniences of long queues and counting money.
Customers just need to get their free Airtel Money Tap ‘N’ Pay sticker from any Airtel Money shop and enjoy this smart payment solution from Airtel.”
Airtel Money is also the first to provide Cardless ATM services as well as link customers’ mobile money accounts to their bank accounts in Ghana.
Apart from that, unlike others, Airtel Money does not charge for transfers from Airtel to Airtel mobile money accounts and it offers the lowest transaction charges on all other services.
It comes with a complete suite of services like money transfer, bill payments, recharge on the move from mobile and savings services and caters to all segments of the society, from the unbanked to the under banked and to the net-savvy and evolved customers.
Today, with a national distribution of over 13,000 agents and more than 2 million customers, Airtel Money is amongst the largest banking correspondent in the country and it’s playing a leading role in enabling financial inclusion and m-commerce.
“Airtel Money presents a strong value proposition for all its subscribers as the service continues to grow in quantity and quality. Through collaborations our services have now been linked up with locally relevant service providers and outlets to enable our customers to pay for goods and services in a secure manner.
Users of Airtel Money can go to any one of its 13,000 registered agents, 500 merchant outlets, 80 shops that accept Airtel Money and 7 Partner banks with over 215 ATMs nationwide to enjoy the smartest payment experience.
These and many more are some of the structures Airtel Money has put in place to accommodate and cater for the growing number of subscribers,” she added.
African Eye Report
