Cue the convenience in payments, queue no more

Making payments for many services in Ghana is not a great experience. Someone will say that it is a pain to give your money away sometimes. Either you’re standing in a long queue or you are bedevilled with traffic in getting there. A lot of merchants are introducing innovations to make bill payments easier while customers are constantly searching for ways to save time and money and reduce frustrations in enjoying these services. Imagine the huge sighs of relief when it is finally your turn after waiting. “I’m finally here”.

I have gone to some of my favorite restaurants and bars to watch popular football games and been disappointed because they were yet to pay their DSTV bills. Sometimes, it can be a laborious and frustrating process for the DSTV bill to be paid and reconnected. Ease of accessing the places to pay these bills is one major issue for subscribers. This issue can be solved through the power of paying by the phone while reducing the manual interventions to a minimum level. With a service like expressPay (expresspaygh.com), a subscriber can pay their DSTV bill with their ATM card, and after payment is confirmed, enjoy the service, instantaneously.

Surfline is the internet service provider of choice for many nouveau riche people in Ghana, especially those who have repatriated. These people are very much used to online payments. Serving these customers with a fast, convenient, easy payment option online in the comfort of their smart phones was paramount for Surfline. With expressPay, Surfline users can now pay their regular amounts for their bundles without any add-on and processing fees synonymous with many Visa and Mastercard payments locally.

The best part about using expressPay for these payments is that you can easily make payments for others. A Nigerian friend once asked me to pay her Surfline bill for her because she needed internet that very moment and her last resort was to pay online. The Surfline store was closed at the time. She brought me cash, I used expressPay to foot her bill and she was online in a matter of minutes. Three words quickly came to mind - “It’s about time”.

The intelligence of the systems involved make expressPay payments even better. I only learnt that I had a 2 cedi advance on my Vodafone Broadband bill because I made a payment via expressPay and the bill stated how much I need to pay. Too many times when I am dealing with service providers in Ghana, I don’t get answers to some basic questions I believe their customer service personnel must be able to tell me. By moving this payment experience online, users and subscribers can get more information at their fingertips and also make these purchases without hassle. This is even more relevant to DStv payments where the amount due may change from month to month due to the exchange rate. expressPay pulls the bill automatically so the user pays the exact amount and gets connected in seconds.

2015 has seen a lot of breakthroughts and innovations in the digital payment space in Ghana. POS (point of sale) terminals are becoming more pervasive in hospitality and recreational places, while other merchants are flocking to accept payments using bank cards, either physically or digitally. I carry my bank card in my wallet and I am starting to use it more and more. Today though, I do not have to carry a watch, a camera, a calendar or a calculator. They are all in my phone thanks to the beauty of software applications. Increasingly, I expect to carry my money within the power of my mobile smart phone experience. This is the device I use all the time. Thanks to expressPay, I am getting there.