BankservAfrica’s SASWITCH service enables clients of any participating bank to draw money from ATM’s belonging to any other participating bank. This service is available to credit and debit card holders.

All domestic transactions with a valid bank identification number (BIN) are switched between acquiring and issuing financial institutions. ATM card transactions bearing an international BIN are not switched via BankservAfrica.

Once a transaction is received from an acquiring financial institution, BankservAfrica applies PIN security algorithms, secures the transaction on both the BankservAfrica primary and disaster recovery (DR) processors, and then forwards the transaction to the issuing financial institution. This is followed by the standard authorised / not-authorised response to the acquiring financial institution.

After various validation and accounting processes, the interbank settlement information is supplied to the Central Bank and the banks’ treasury departments via a SWIFT link.

Features and advantages

• Interoperability between all banks:
  
  Better use of existing network infrastructure for banks. Wider access to facilities for clients. Reduced infrastructure costs for banks. Standardised message formats between banks.
  
   

• Enables credit:
  
  Customers are able to utilise predetermined credit facilities at their own discretion.