Financial Inclusion White Paper - NCR

Case Study 5S4: Mzansi, South Africa
Shared services and Collaboration for Financial Inclusion
The Mzansi account is a National Bank Account product launched in 2004 in line
with the commitments of South Africa's Financial Sector Charter, requiring banks
to make banking more accessible to the nation and, specifically, to increase
banking reach to poor communities.
The Mzansi account is facilitated through the four largest commercial banks –
Absa, First National Bank, Nedbank, Standard Bank, and the governmentowned
Postbank. Each bank has established its own pricing competitively and
some have placed a maximum balance limit on accounts.
To keep costs as low as possible and to ensure that the account is easy to use,
transactions are limited to deposits, withdrawals and debit card payments - the
account includes a debit card that can be used at retail outlets. No management
fees are charged on Mzansi accounts, so customers are able to save without
having their capital eroded by bank charges, with the only fees being for
transactions made - and with ATM transactions costing the same regardless of
which member bank's ATM is used.
In a money transfer service associated with the Mzansi account, a customer
can transfer money even if not an account holder with a participating bank.
Access to the account is provided through a combination of existing service
point outlets and physical branch outlets:
• Merchant Point-of-Sale devices
• Any Mzansi institution ATM
• SASWITCH (BANKSERV) ATMs
• South Africa Post Office outlets
About 13-million South Africans were "unbanked" at the time of Mzansi's launch
but within one year, Mzansi had two million account holders and now has three
million. Eight-hundred thousand of Mzansi’s account holders are from the poorest
57% of the population.
Mzansi has been a driving force behind financial inclusion – sixty percent of South
African adults now have a bank account, up from 50% in 2006.
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