20100401
allafrica

Tunis — Mr. Khaled Fradi, Director General of "Monétique-Tunisie" (SMT), announced on Tuesday in Tunis the launch for the first time in Africa of the MasterCard "PayPass".

The news was announced during a press conference held on the occasion of the 5th Forum of card technologies "Cards Africa 2010" which is due to be held from April 1st to 2nd,2010.

During the conference, Mr. Fradi stressed that MasterCard "PayPass" technology is a faster (between 3 to 7 seconds), easier way to make purchases.

He said that this card will be experienced in 2010 in sectors for purchases that do not exceed 20 dinars, adding that the number of banking cards issued in Tunisia by 2009, was estimated at 2,082, 905 cards against 791, 641 in 2003.

The use of cards for Automated Tell Machine (ATM) operations represents about 85% of the overall use of banking cards in Tunisia, whereas their use for purchase did not exceed 15% in 2009.

Already accepted in thousands of locations worldwide, the Commonwealth Bank is the first to offer MasterCard "PayPass" in Australia.

In 2005, MasterCard began to roll out the "PayPass" in certain markets. As of September 2008, several financial institutions have issued the MasterCard "PayPass" including "Bank of America", "Washington Mutual" and "Canadian Tire Bank".

In 2008 "Master Card" ranked the STM as the best monetics company in Africa, the Middle East and East Asia.