Co-Operative Bank of Kenya to launch CR2s e-purse solution

In addition Co-op Bank is the first bank in Kenya to licence CR2’s e-purse solution. This offering is one of the first products that will allow migration to Visa’s new OSI standard for E-Purse solutions and is expected to drive a strong second wave of investment in e-purse products with the promise of interoperability across bank’s ATM and point of sale networks. SmartBank consists of a chip on a bank card which allows the customer to pre-load value onto their card at the ATM, branch or at a merchant POS device. This enables customers to purchase goods for “cash” by simply inserting the card into the point of sale. For higher value transactions, PIN validation may be requested. The bank can issue cards to both non account and account holders. And, when required, customers can obtain balance or statement information from their purse at a POS or ATM. The benefits to banks are that it greatly reduces fraud and theft, reduces cash handling costs and it is highly secure – even offline. Co-operative Bank of Kenya is CR2’s first SmartBank customer in Kenya. The bank has been a CR2 customer since 1995 using CR2’s ATM solution to manage its ATM network. The implementation of the new system commences shortly with the aim of going live by early next year. The bank currently has over 30 ATMs in branches throughout the country. They will double this over the next 6 months as they add new machines and upgrade existing ATMs. The bank has also selected CR2’s Visa SMS Acquiring. This will enable them to acquire Visa cards at ATMs.