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Tag: Remita

  • UTME candidates endorse Remita for forms purchase

    Students seeking admission into various higher institutions across the country are heaving a sigh of relief with the introduction of Remita for the purchase of their Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) forms.

    This followed a recent statement by the Head of Public Relations, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Dr. Fabian Benjamin, that “aside the banks and NIPOST, candidates can now purchase the pins through Remita.”

    He added that the inclusion of Remita is to further cushion the challenges faced by students.

    “Candidates can now purchase the pin for registration from the comfort of their homes,” he said.

    Speaking on the development, a UTME candidate based in Akure, Ayanfe Adelolu, who recently paid with Remita, described his experience as convenient:

    He said, “All I did was to visit JAMB website, log in with my registered profile, click the ‘UTME Examination’ under the Sales of Form feature, and then select Remita.”

    “From there, I went on to choose how I wanted to pay.”

    Another candidate said she paid with her mobile phone using Remita’s app:

    “When I got to the page where I was asked about how I want to pay, I saw that I could pay with an app which I had heard of before. So, I downloaded it and used the Pay RRR features to pay,” the candidate stated.

    In an earlier statement, JAMB had blamed cybercafés for making “information gathering, processing and administration of examination cumbersome as records and data of candidates are distorted.”

    With Remita as a new e-PIN vendor, students will now be able to complete payment from their mobile phones even without patronising cyber cafés.

    Already, JAMB has registered 600,000 candidates for the 2017 UTME across the country. With the addition of Remita to other e-PIN vendors, the payment process is now much easier for candidates.

  • UTME Registration: JAMB introduces Remita to ease candidates’ pin purchase

    UTME Registration: JAMB introduces Remita to ease candidates’ pin purchase

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says that eligible candidates for its 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) can now purchase the pin for registration using the Remita mode.

    The board said on Sunday the development came on the heels of the reported challenges the candidates faced in an attempt to acquire the pins from NIPOST and the designated banks.

    The Head of Information of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin, said the board had noted the many headaches of prospective candidates from various parts of the country, including Lagos.

    He said that candidates had lamented the difficulties involved in obtaining the pins from designated banks on the payment of N5,500 and the subsequent hassles in getting registered.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the registration of candidates for the examination started on March 20.

    NAN also reports that the candidates had described the process as cumbersome and frustrating as they have to queue as early as 2 or 3 a.m. in some cases in banks just to acquire pins.

    They had also said that often times, they spent the entire day waiting endlessly without results as the bank officials tell them that they could not access the site for the pins.

    They also said the development normally warranted them to spend almost an entire week trying and that even when they succeeded, they start facing the task of registration at overcrowded centres.

    According to Benjamin, candidates are advised not to panic as every eligible candidate desirous of registering will do so before the closing date of April 19.

    “We appreciate the fact that the sales of the UTME for 2017 which is hitherto set to last for six has been reduced to one month.

    “This was done in the interest of the candidates as it was to ensure that the challenges candidates are going through are resolved.

    “To further cushion the effect of these challenges, we have decided to bring the Remitta mode on board.

    “Candidates can now purchase the pin for registration from the comfort of their homes.

    “So, aside the banks and NIPOST, candidates can now purchase the pins through Remita,’’ Benjamin said in a statement.

    The statement explained why the board banned cyber cafes from registering candidates for the examination, noting that activities in the cafes damaged records and statistics of candidates.

    “In as much as we want to be inclusive, we cannot look the other way while students’ records and national statistics are mutilated.

    “Ours is an examination, so we cannot be guided by primordial consideration over quality and standard,’’ it said.

    According to the statement, most problems associated with candidates’ registration such as wrong spellings of names, wrongful placement of passport photograph and others emanates from the business centres at registration points.

    “Don’t forget, it is virtually impossible to regulate the activities of these business centres as their mode of operations did not provide necessary details about them.

    “These problems created by cafes make information gathering, processing and administration of examination cumbersome as records and data of candidates are distorted.

    “The accreditation centres are on the board’s website for easy identification cohesion and smooth operation,’’ it explained.

    He added that the board would continue to expand the frontiers and channels of the sales of the pins in virtually all the banks, with a view to bringing the services to the door step of every Nigerian child desirous of qualitative tertiary education.

    According to the statement, examination is a serious business and it cannot be left open the way some people want it to be.

    “We again urge Nigerians particularly anxious candidates not to fall prey to unsuspecting and dubious individuals who parade themselves as agents of JAMB with the intention to defraud them.

    “The board’s e-brochures and syllabus are on the CD to be given out to candidates and it is free and available as a guide to candidates to have a hitch-free registration exercise,’’ the statement said.

  • Remita processes $30b transactions yearly, says SystemSpecs

    SystemSpecs Executive Director Deremi Atanda has said that Remita, the technology driving the Treasury Single Account (TSA), processes over $30 billion transactions yearly within Nigeria alone.

    He spoke at the Gulf International Technology Exhibition (GITEX) in Dubai.

    Remita is the e-payments and e-collections solution platform developed by SystemSpecs Limited and used by Federal Government agencies for the TSA.

    “There’s also a roadmap to take Remita to Africa. So if you have a vision to be part of revolutionising payments in Africa at whatever level, driving financial inclusion at the national level, savings, micro-savings and micro-transactions, Remita is best placed to help you achieve that,” Atanda said.

    He explained that Remita is also at the forefront of driving the national financial inclusion policy, and is currently used by about 500 micro-finance banks to meet the needs of many Nigerians who lack access to commercial banking services, empowering them to extend financial services to unbanked Nigerians.

    SystemSpecs Limited, one of Nigeria’s leading software development and solutions companies, won the award for its use of Remita “as a tool of national and economic development”.

    The “leadership in technology” award was conferred on the company in Scotland on the April 22, hosted by the Africa Forum Scotland, according to a statement from the company.

    Beside the award in Scotland, John Obaro, SystemSpecs managing director, was also recognised as the software personality of the year at the Nigeria communications week’s Beacon of Information and Communications Technology (BoICT) Awards in Lagos on April 23.

    Speaking about the awards Obaro said: “We dedicate these awards to all the hardworking Nigerians that roll up their sleeves every day to devise innovative, home-grown solutions to the various challenges facing us as a nation, thereby contributing their respective quotas in making Nigeria great again in the ever watchful eye of the global community”.

  • Remita a catalyst for economic development

    Remita a catalyst for economic development

    Tomorrow’s economy will be built on digital finance as the world looks for alternative and faster ways to achieve inclusive growth, empowering individuals, businesses and governments to carry out cheaper and more effective transactions.

    The McKinsey report for September 2016 reinforces this projection. Tagged “Digital finance for all: Powering inclusive growth in emerging economies,” the report forecasts that “widespread adoption and use of digital finance could increase the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of all emerging economies by 6 percent, or a total of $3.7 trillion, by 2025.” It goes on to explain that the additional GDP will generate 95 million new jobs across all sectors of the economy, provide access to 1.6 billion unbanked people, while governments could gain $110 billion yearly by reducing leakages in public spending and tax collection.

    As one of the emerging economies, Nigeria is poised to leverage the opportunities associated with this projection. This year’s KPMG FinTech Report said Nigeria is fast becoming a dynamic ecosystem bursting at the seams with opportunities for FinTech start-ups. Currently, less than 50 million people have bank accounts in Nigeria’s population of over 170 million people, 115 million of whom are youthful and use mobile phones for financial transactions. Not surprisingly, FinTech companies are cashing in to launch products cutting across lending, payment, transfer, purchasing, investing/borrowing and switching. Paga, PayPal, PaywithCapture, QuickTeller, GTMobile, e-Tranzact and Remita are only a handful of the dominant players in Nigeria’s burgeoning FinTech industry.

    Collectively, they have made financial transactions much easier, eliminating the need for consumers to join long queues in banking halls or restrict their financial transactions to official work hours Mondays through Fridays.

    Some FinTech products such as Remita have gone beyond basic financial services to impact government finance and national bottom lines massively. Launched in 2006, Remita is an electronic platform that helps the government, corporate organisations, SMEs and individuals make and receive payments easily. It aggregates multiple bank accounts, giving customers the ability to perform the complete suite of eTransactions.

    On September 15, 2015, Nigeria adopted the TSA policy, praised at home and abroad for returning over N4.3 trillion cash assets to the country’s treasury. The policy – initiated by ex- President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration but implemented by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration – stipulates that government funds generated from taxes, levies and tariffs should be deposited in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and disbursed subject to stringent procedures to ensure accountability in the management of government cash resources.

    For years, the government’s attempts to adopt TSA were unsuccessful, as the CBN lacked the technological capacity to manage the retail aspect of the policy. A foreign e-technology platform, RTGS, initially expected to drive the payment leg of Nigeria’s TSA project, was subsequently found to be unsuitable for retail payments. SystemSpecs came into the picture, and lost no time overcoming this challenge with Remita.

    One year on, the government has identified and closed over 17,000 MDA accounts and transferred the recovered funds to the TSA. Deposit Money Banks have also been constrained to diversify their sources of deposit mobilisation rather than rely on these idle funds which yielded interest for faceless individuals and groups while the government was starved of funds.  Earlier this year, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, went to town to declare that the TSA had helped this administration’s fight corruption, flushed out ghost workers and saved the economy from imminent collapse. But analysts said the TSA’s effectiveness may not have seen the light of day without Remita, the payment gateway powering the policy behind the scenes.

    “Remita processes over $30 billion worth of transactions every year, and that’s just within Nigeria,” said SystemSpecs Executive Director, Deremi Atanda, during the recent Gulf International Technology Exhibition (GITEX) held in Dubai. “There’s also a roadmap to take Remita to Africa. So if you have a vision to be part of revolutionising payments in Africa at whatever level, driving financial inclusion at the national level, savings, micro-savings and micro-transactions, Remita is best placed to help you achieve that.”

    He explained that Remita is also at the forefront of driving the national financial inclusion policy, and is currently used by about 500 micro-finance banks to meet the needs of many Nigerians who lack access to commercial banking services, empowering them to extend financial services to unbanked Nigerians.

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo corroborated this assertion from the cost-saving perspective. In August 2016, he disclosed that 40,000 ghost workers had been flushed out of the public service, thanks to the TSA which is powered by Remita. When that figure is multiplied by the current Minimum Wage which stands at N18,000, the country saves a whopping N720 million monthly and N8.64 billion yearly.

    Indeed, Remita has instilled fiscal discipline that allows government to have control over budget allocations, whilst providing multiple entry points for collections. The execution of the TSA policy made possible by Remita has significantly reduced government’s debt servicing costs, lowered liquidity reserve needs, and fostered effective use of surplus cash.

    Going forward, SystemSpecs is poised to tap into McKinsey’s projection that payments and financial services delivered via mobile phones and the Internet could transform the lives and economic prospects of individuals, businesses, and governments across the developing world. The mobile version of its software Remita is slated for launch before year’s end to help make financial inclusion a reality in the Nigerian economy before long.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • ‘Remita controversy shocking’

    ‘Remita controversy shocking’

    The Chief Executive Officer, SystemSpecs, Mr John Obara, has expressed shock over the needless controversy that Remita, a technology that has helped the Federal Government  mop up over N2trillion, has generated in the last few months.

    Speaking on the sideline of an award in Lagos, he said the innovative product – Remita – that drives the electronic revenue collection of the Federal Government, under the Treasury Single Account (TSA) regime, has not only stemmed leakages in the system, but it has also ensured that the government stopped going to commercial banks to borrow money at double digit interest rate.

    He said: “As at December 2015, over N2trillion had come into the coffers of Federal Government through the TSA initiative. And like our dear president said sometimes ago, in previous years, at end of the year, somehow all these monies disappeared in one way or the other that nobody was unable to give proper account of.

    “But now Federal Government knows they have over two N2 trillion; the government can now decide how to genuinely use the money to provide the basic infrastructure needed to develop the economy. Also we have a situation now where before now all these funds were in commercial banks and government would go to commercial banks and borrow (its money) money at 15 per cent (interest rate) because the Federal Government does not really know that these funds are there.

    “They just go to borrow at commercial banks and end up paying 15 per cent. But now you have these monies in government coffers; you can imagine the type of savings that you are making not only because you don’t pay this kind of interest charges but because you now even have funds you can actually invest to grow the national economy.”

    He said the TSA started very quietly and crept into the nation and by the time people woke up to realise its impact, they found out that very surprising that such a thing could happen, adding that today the government is in a position to know the total cash position at any point time. According to him, there was a time there were over 17,000 accounts in different banks that nobody even knew about, stressing that there is now a platform that can bring all of them together for government to say this is its cash position at this point in time.

    “In the past, people would pretend to have made payment to government, and probably forged some receipts and made a way with it, now it is no longer possible as every payment is verified online before service is provided. So, in terms of impact, this is a system that has really fundamentally changed many things. Well of course, you will appreciate that to come in with a system in an environment like this, you do not expect everybody to clap for you, so that is the situation where we are. In addition to that, many people don’t really understand what TSA is about, they don’t understand what is happening but there are also those people who know what you are doing and are determined to frustrate this TSA by frustrating the technology behind it why pretending to be supporting the noble course of TSA,” he said.

    He lamented the very avoidable controversies over a one per cent charge which was discussed when nobody had an idea of the scope- no data was available. “It was Remita that brought these data to the fore and we were now able to see some huge sums and then there came the question that these figures are high. And then we said let us renegotiate now that we have some data.

    “Our first letter that we are open to renegotiation was dated September 16, 2015. Instead of focusing on renegotiation, a lot of noise eventually came up that one per cent is too high. Honestly, we are shocked this distractions,” he said.

    This is because the worst that we thought would happened was that someone would wake up one day and say he does not want TSA but the beat about saying that there is fraud and abuse of the platform, that was a bit heavy and was sudden on us because for those who know SystemSpecs the thing that drives us is our ethics.

    And that is why not many people know we have been doing these collections without charging since all these controversies started. Not only did we refund the fees from March last year but since late October, all the collections on the platform, we have not been charging. We are still waiting for government to close this conversation on the fee.

    The easiest thing for us to have done is to have stopped collecting and that would have created an unnecessary crisis but we are collecting and waiting for some matured conversation to close that,” Obaro said.

     

  • TSA Senate report: CBN, AGF in dilemma over Remita

    TSA Senate report: CBN, AGF in dilemma over Remita

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Accountant-General of the Federation are in a dilemma over how to handle the  Senate’s request on the Treasury Single Account (TSA). The Senate wants the CBN and AGF to cancel the contract with owners of Remita, which manages the TSA.

    The Federal Government has mopped more than N3 trillion into the TSA in 12 months.

    A CBN director said the bank received a second letter last week from Systemspecs, owners of Remita, requesting for payment of outstanding debt and clarifications on their future collaboration.

    The source said Remita has not been paid for its services since March, last year when the platform began to track cash in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). It was learnt that the Nigeria Interbank Settlement Systems (NIBSS), which is being positioned to coordinate collection with Remita is not ready to undertake the assignment if the apex bank breaches the Remita contract.

    The initial payment to Systemspecs was stopped via a CBN letter dated October 27 last year and signed by the Director of Banking and Payments Systems Department, Mr Dipo Fatokun.

    In the letter, Fatokun said: ”I have been directed to inform you that you should refund all charges made into MDAs accounts as a result of the implementation of the TSA.

    “Since the cost of collection must have been shared by all the stakeholders, you are hereby required to also provide a schedule of the total amount collected and the portion that was shared to each of the participants.”

    But the Executive Director of Systemspecs Ltd, Mr Aderemi Atanda, declined to confirm if such a letter was sent to the CBN last week.

    “We are talking to the CBN, the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Ministry of Finance about the way forward because we are not averse to renegotiation of the contract to move forward in the interest of the TSA success,” Atanda said, adding: “this is normal because they are the key stakeholders in the project”.

    The letter, a copy of which was sent to the AGF and the Ministry of Finance, is believed to be the second three weeks, seeking clarification on the contract and its payment.

    While the CBN, the MoF and the AGF are believed to be disposed to upholding the contract and the use of Remita for the continued success of the TSA, the Senate has a different view.

    The Senate, in a 42-page report prepared in February, asked the CBN to cancel the contract.

  • TSA: CBN admits contract with Remita

    TSA: CBN admits contract with Remita

    •N2tr collected from MDAs, says Emefiele

    Bureaucracy and professionalism clashed yesterday in Abuja.

    Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele and Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) Ahmed Idris were locked in arguements over the controversial Treasury Single Account (TSA) with SystemSpecs Limited, owner of Remita, an electronic payment solution.

    But SystemSpecs Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Obaro insisted that his platform had a valid contract with the CBN and deserved to earn its charge as contained in the contract.

    Emefiele, Idris and Obaro spoke at a public hearing on alleged abuse and mismanagement of the TSA regime.

    The Senate instituted the public hearing following claims that the one per cent service charge being paid to Remita under the TSA was a rip-off.

    Emefiele explained the spirit behind the TSA which process he said began in 2010.

    Idris gave the amount collected under the TSA as N1.8 trillion but

    The CBN Governor gave N2.038 trillion as the amount collected from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as at December 8. But The AGF gave a figure of N1.8 trillion.

    Emefiele said because of the large volume of fund collection under TSA, the payment of one per cent service charge to the service provider, Remita was considered to be too high and exorbitant.

    Emefiele added that the TSA scheme is laudable adding that the Federal Government should be commended for ensuring its full implementation.

    He noted that already the CBN has over N2 trillion, money that should have been lying idle in banks.

    He said that there was no abuse of the TSA as being claimed in some quarters.

    Chairman of the joint committee promptly reminded him that the TSA is not on trial especially when the Senate had commended President Muhammadu Buhari for its implementation.

    On who approved the payment of one per cent service charge to Remita, the CBN governor said he needed to cross check but admitted that that there was an agreement between CBN and Remita.

    He said he was told that Inter-Departmental Committee of the apex bank approved the payment.

    He also told the committee that the Remita platform was designed to handle retail payment.

    Emefiele said that when Remita was appointed as e- payment Solution platform, Nigeria Inter-Banks Settlement System (NIBSS) owned by the CBN was not quite ready to provide the services.

    The CBN boss said that he is not aware that Remita is hosted outside the country adding that all he knows is that Remita is a Nigerian company and hosted in the country.

    Emefiele reiterated that since 2012 when TSA was introduced over N2 trillion had been collected and the volume of collection would continue to increase.

    He said that the agreement stipulated a sharing formula of CBN 10%, banks 40% and Remita 50% of the one per cent service charge.

    Emefiele told the committee that at the reversal of the agreement Remita was asked to refund the N8 billion it collected.

    The company, he said, promptly complied by refunding what it earned.

    The Senate had claimed that Remita received N25 billion in three months.

    The CBN governor said that he is sure that Remita has also realised that the payment of one per cent service charge on all funds collected is exorbitant.

    On alleged upfront payment of the service charge, the CBN governor said he does not think the deduction was made up front from the collection.

    He said, “Monies have been collected and the agreement says you take one per cent of what had been collected.”

    Asked whether he was aware that one per cent was being taken from the funds collected for the Federal Government, Emefiele said:

    “I did not know that one per cent was being taken on that account until we were summoned to the office of the Senate President and I was surprised to hear it. It was immediately that I swung into act to find out who John Obaro is. I called him immediately to refund the money he collected and to reverse the payment.

    “Initially I did not know who owns Remita and SystemSpecs until my attention was drawn o it in the Senate President’s office. I have to admit that I did not know about the payment until it came up on the floor of the Senate. That was why I quickly called Mr. Obaro and immediately reversed the payment.”

    Chairman of the committee Enoh praised the courage of the CBN boss for admitting that he did not know about the payment.

    Enoh noted that it is solemn for people in office to admit their error.

    The Accounta General told the Committee that the TSA is meant to focus on resources of government and to ensure that the resources are consolidated and viewed through single window.

    He said that it is also meant to block leakages.

    Idris gave the amount collected under the TSA as N1.8 trillion but the CBN Governor gave N2.038 trillion as the amount collected as at December 8, 2015.

    Idris said that 47 MDAs had enrolled in the TSA scheme adding that it does not mean that that MDAs do not want to enroll.

    He said that the appointment of Remita as e-payment solution platform was a stop-gap because the CBN lacked the capacity to do it when Remita was selected.

    He said that they have been meeting on the way forward until the matter came up in the Senate.

    On charges paid to Remita Idris said: “Whatever charges made by Remita which is about N8 billion, we wish that the matter should be resolved. Now Remita is operating without charge. The matter should be resolved. Remita cannot be operating without charge.

    He told the committee that there was no MoU between the Office of the Accountant General and Remita.

    He added: “What I do know is that when I came I was confronted with the agreement for the appointment of Remita and I refused to sign it because I was not part of the agreement.”

    Idris said that he also refused to endorse the appointment because “I was opposed and disagreed with the level of payment and charges awarded to Remita. There was no agreement between the CBN and the AGF duly signed.”

    He continued, “My office has not made any payment on the operation of the TSA. We have not engaged anybody and no payment. My office is not party to any payment.”

    Idris said that the provision of gateway of collection of government funds is the responsibility of the CBN adding that if the CBN had provided that gate way there would not be any need to appoint Remita.

    He agreed that if Remita provided the services it deserved to be paid.

    In his presentation Obaro, said that the use of Remita started in 2012 with 116 Ministries Departments and Agencies.

    He insisted that his company has valid contract agreement with the CBN and it should be honoured.

    He said that the agreement for the fees was reached in 2013 by a committee comprising the CBN, OAGF, the commercial banks and SystemSpecs at a price of 2.5 per cent, which was reduced to one per cent later.

    Obaro said the use of Remita software had increased transparency with provision of online real time account balances of all MDAs.

    He said that even officers who approve payments were documented as well as those to whom such payments were made, insisting that the company had a valid contract with the CBN and the charges were as agreed to.

    He however said that the OAGF in October, 2015, expressed worry at the percentage and he stressed that the company did not have any problem with a percentage renegotiation.

    He expressed displeasure that the rules of a game could be changed in the middle of a game and a contract rescinded without any explanation.

    Obaro also said that when CBN asked that Remita should refund what it received it promptly complied especially because the CBN is also their regulator.

    On September 14, 2015, the OAGF had expressed concern at a project review meeting about the fees considering the enlarged scope of the project. SystemSpecs was not averse to price renegotiation. We wrote to the CBN that we are open to renegotiation and that an all stakeholders meeting be convened.

    “Three weeks later on October 7, we wrote again that an all stakeholders meeting should be convened to review processing fees.

    “Two weeks later on October 27, we were instructed by the CBN to refund all fees that have accrued to us in accordance with the contract. We strategically chose to comply within 24 hours of receipt of their letter as we did not want to allow the issue of fees in the heat of the moment to becloud the work we have done in the delivery of TSA for Nigeria. While refunding our own portion of the fees as demanded by the CBN however, we accompanied the refund with a fairly worded letter stating why the fees legitimately earned in line with our contract should be refunded to us. How much more could we have demonstrated good faith?

    “On November 11, two weeks after refunding all fees and operating zero fees at the risk of a legal battle with other stakeholders, without hearing our own side of the story, we were erroneously accused of fraud, abuse and mismanagement of the TSA on the hallowed chambers of this highly respected Senate.

    “To say the least sir, we feel used, abused, unappreciated and abandoned by the country for which we stuck out our necks and faith to deliver the platform that made the TSA possible, which in other climes, all citizens would be proud of, acclaimed, encouraged and motivated to further the frontiers of greater technological breakthroughs and innovation.

    “In any case, pray, how could enforcing the terms of a validly signed and subsisting contract amount to fraud while discussions were already ongoing on whether the terms of the valid contract may need to be reviewed to recognize emerging realities? How can discussions on the need to re-negotiate contractual terms due to increased volumes form the basis to seek to throw the baby away with the bath water?”

    The Chairman of the joint committee stressed that no matter how much money was involved, one per cent charge was too exorbitant for the job.

    He commended all parties who made presentation for opening up and directed that all commercial banks not represented must be present at the next hearing of the committee on the matter.

     

  • SystemSpecs boosts cashless with Remita

    SystemSpecs boosts cashless with Remita

    A Nigerian firm, SystemSpecs  Limited, has introduced an electronic collection platform, Remita, to ease money collection.

    According to the firm, Remita is a faster, safer and more convenient way of collecting money for both small and large scale enterprises as well as other collecting organisations.

    Its Managing Director, Mr. John Obaro, who spoke during the launch of the new platform, said the development is in line with the move by the Federal Government to close all revenue accounts of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) with commercial banks, incorporating them into a consolidated revenue fund taking effect from March 1 this year.

    Obaro said  the platform has been able to solve many complexities as regard the payment and collection of money. He said the idea behind Remita is making it  easy for people to pay and for collectors to receive money faster. He said it is opening up practically all bank branches making it easier to pay either with a bank card electronically or online or mobile banking.

    He explained that it is easy to set the e-collection portal up, adding that “for those who do not need full integration, you are ready to start receiving money within one hour and within two days for those that need technical integration.”

    Remita, according to Obaro, is the quickest and easiest way to connect to the  market and has the widest reach, in terms of options available to those who want to pay while signing up to Remita is absolutely free. This makes it friendly for both small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) and Micro, Medium and Small Enterprises (MSME).

    He said: “We make our money with your payments, your transactions and even at that, we are charging two per cent subject to a maximum of N2000, which is far below the market average,” he said, adding that the charge in the market is up to 3.5 per cent.

    “This feat has, however, been credited to the advanced technology put in place, making it easy to connect with the platform, which in turn takes away the initial connection fee. It requires easy steps to register by visiting remita.net.”

    Also speaking at the briefing in Lagos, its Executive Director, Deremi Atanda outlined the benefits, adding that Remita is bringing to the table a comprehensive package which is aimed at making the collection of payment simple.