Stanbic flexipay to transform school fees payments

Stanbic Bank Uganda’s leading financial services provider recently announced the launch of an innovative digital school fees payments and collections solution aimed at easing the time-consuming and costly process of lining up in bank halls to pay fees. The solution named StanbicFlexiPay allows parents and students to settle their school fees using the banks various digital solutions as well as Mobile Money.

Our reporter talked to the banks Head of Public Sector Milly Kyolaba who explained why FlexiPay was developed, how it will make life easier for customers while touching on some of the other exciting digital innovations the bank will be introducing that will dramatically improve the consumer banking experience in 2017.

Below are the excerpts.

• Give us a little background, why did the bank create Flexipay and how will it make the lives of school fees paying customers easier?

FlexiPay is a school fees payments and collections solution the bank developed in order to offer our customers (parents, guardians, students and educational institutions) greater convenience, savings and flexibility. It gives them the ability to pay and receive their school fees securely and conveniently using either Stanbic’s digital payment solutions, Mobile Money or the bank branch.FlexiPay will simplify people’s lives because it can be used anywhere anytime, from your mobile phone. This means school fees paying customers will no longer have to queue up at bank branches at the beginning of every term allowing them to focus on more important things like ensuring the child is actually ready and fully prepared for school.

• Apart from not queuing up what other advantages does FlexiPay offer?

FlexiPay offers a number of benefits and advantages for the parents, guardians and the school.Beyond the convenience of being able to make payments from anywhere thus eliminating unnecessary transport costs, parents or guardians are also able to make real savings in terms of money because the solution has very affordable charges and to our customers, there is no extra charge – It thus costs nothing at all! Just to give you an example: there are no school fees bank charges incurred by our Stanbic customers who will make payments using our Mobile (*290#) and Online Banking platforms. Users are also assured of secure payments, as FlexiPay verifies each student and school before making a payment and they receive an instant confirmation of payment with all details (School & Student name, Amount paid)on their mobile phone with a unique payment number for future reference.

The school, on the other hand, gets the benefit of being immediately notified when a student payment is made. In addition the system allows for automated reconciliations of collections which helps eliminate forgeries and reduce on wasteful administrative costs such as paperwork. Lastly FlexiPay supports the overall management function by allowing the school to generate collection reports such as individual student statements and debtor lists.

• Exactly which are these payment channels where customers can access the FlexiPay solution?

FlexiPay is currently available on the following platforms and channels;MTN Mobile Money *290*1#, our branches and next year on Mobile Banking *290# and Online Banking. In 2017 we have also planned to enable other channels to receive school fees such as web E-Commerce and Visa-enabled Point Of Sale machines (POS). In future, we also intend to provide this solution on our ATMs.As Stanbic we firmly believe the future of banking is digital which is the reason why we have invested so much in providing our customers so many different alternatives.

• How does a school sign up to FlexiPay and how much does it cost?

This is a fairly simple process; First of all the school needs to sign a standard FlexiPay agreement with the bank (in most cases with the branch manager where the account is held). The bank will then go ahead to register the school on the FlexiPay platform. The designated school administrator will then receive an automated email with guidelines on how to access and use StanbicFlexiPay. The School Admin manager can if necessary create other internal users with different roles for ease of management. Each student is assigned a unique student number by the school. Parents and Guardians can thereafter start paying school fees using any of the Stanbic channels or Mobile Money. The beauty of it all being there are no setup costs as the system is absolutely free for schools.

• What of security what measures has the bank put in place to guarantee the School does not risk being exposed to fraud or mistakes by users.

As a bank the security of our customer funds is our primary concern as such we have put in place a robust and secure system with inbuilt safety mechanisms that ensure the FlexiPay platform can only be accessed by the authorized persons. Our payment solutions operate in a secure, session-based environment and the functionality offered is in line with the security requirements and global standards of mobile banking platforms. To that end each user is assigned credentials (passwords, usernames) with different roles and functionalities; audit logs are also available as an oversight tool to track the actions of all users of the system.

• What of training, how do schools learn how to use the back end of FlexiPay?

The bank offers training free of charge and technical support all the way through till users within the school are comfortable with it and able to navigate the system with ease.One of the other major benefits of FlexiPay is its being simple and user friendly.

• Progressively we see greater emphasis on the use of digital technology within the bank both as a means of reducing costs and improving service delivery, can you tell us about some of the innovations you have done or will be rolling out in 2017?

Our innovations are placing Stanbic Bank at the forefront of Digital banking in Uganda. Our customers can access any of the bank’s ATMs to deposit and withdraw cash, or use their mobile phones to access real-time banking services through the App or Mobile banking (*290#). Our Corporate and Business Banking customers can now run their business finances using their laptops, smart phones or tablets with online banking, Enterprise Online or Business Online. If you have an ATM card, we offer Point of Sale machines at almost all major retail premises (restaurants, hotels, supermarkets etc.) for your cashless purchases.For the un banked, Stanbic’s Instant Money services allow customers to send money from their Stanbic Bank account to any mobile phone. We are making it easier for our customers so that they don’t have to physically visit a branch to transact.

In 2017, our focus will be on enhancing the existing capability across these digital solutions and we will also focus on enhancing the security of our platforms even further. Our aim is to offer our customers an amazing Digital Banking experience.