WayaMe is the public-facing name for Namibia’s new instant payment solution (IPS), a national payment system designed to allow money to move instantly between participating banks, wallets and other payment providers.
It is operated by Instant Payments Namibia under the Bank of Namibia, while customers will continue to use their existing bank apps, mobile wallets or USSD services to make payments.
WayaMe is intended to make payments more interoperable by allowing consumers to transact across different participating financial institutions without having to use the same bank or wallet as the recipient.
The system’s key feature is interoperability, meaning that payments can move between different types of financial accounts and payment services.
This includes bank-to-bank, bank-to-wallet, wallet-to-bank and wallet-to-wallet transactions, where the relevant institutions participate in the system.
Currently, different banks and payment providers can operate within separate systems. WayaMe is intended to make these systems talk to one another.
At its most basic level, a customer will initiate a payment through a bank application, e-money wallet or USSD service.
The transaction will then be routed through the national instant-payment infrastructure before the recipient receives the funds and both parties receive confirmation.
The system is designed to support a number of payment services, including person-to-person transfers, merchant payments, cash-in and cash-out services, ATM withdrawals and payments from businesses and the government to individuals.
Over time, the system is expected to support government-to-person payments, including government grants, pensions and other benefits.
WayaMe is, therefore, not a new bank or a standalone mobile-money wallet.
Rather, it will act as the common national identifier for payment services powered by the IPS, while individual banks and payment providers retain their own brands, applications and customer interfaces.
