Chase Bank Kenya migrates card portfolio to OpenWay’s Way4 platform
Raj Singh, Chase Group
Chase Bank Kenya has migrated its full card portfolio to the Way4 payment software platform from Electra Card System.
The solution is developed by Belgium-based OpenWay and Way4 will support the issuance of prepaid, debit and credit cards — under the MasterCard and Visa brands. Chase Bank Kenya is looking to grow its cards business and improve fraud management.
Raj Singh, Chase Group director of information technology and operations, says it chose the platform because of its “security, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and high availability” and OpenWay also has a “long-term experience in migrating data from the Electra Card System platform”.
Singh adds that to be a “disrupter” in the mobile space and “support continuously changing payment trends” in Kenya, the bank decided to replace its existing Electra Card System with a new in-house processing solution as the legacy platform the bank was running on had become a “barrier to launching new financial products due to the costs of customising it”.
In Kenya, Chase Bank has launched several card products which combine payment functionality and mobile wallet features, including supermarket loyalty cards, University ID cards with wallet features, and traveller cards with bonuses features, among other prepaid cards products.
According to the Central Bank of Kenya and the Communications Authority of Kenya, 76% of the country’s population (44.35 million) is registered for mobile money.
$24 billion worth of funds was transacted through mobile money in 2014 and $101 billion since the introduction of mobile money in Kenya.
The majority of adult Kenyans use mobile money for services ranging from P2P-transfers and bill payments, to donations, savings and loans.
