ALAT, Nigeria’s digital banking platform has included a new quick response (QR)-code-based payments and collections solution to increase the convenience and safety of the platform.
The new feature on ALAT, known as NQR or quick response (QR), is a code-based payment and collections solution that provides fast, easy, secure, reliable, contactless and account-based options to receive and pay for goods and services.
Announcing the new feature in a press statement, the Head of e-business and Payments, Damola Bolodeoku, explained that merchants/business owners/individuals can display the QR Codes generated on ALAT to receive payments at their locations for goods and services.
“Payers/customers select the NQR option on their bank’s mobile application and scan the displayed NQR Codes to make payment to the merchant. Merchants/Business owners and payers get instant notification of payment made,” he explained.
The benefits of the NQR on ALAT, Bolodeoku said, include simplicity of use, easy setup, zero cost of acquisition and a seamless merchant onboarding process as well as super-fast deployment, instant payment and settlement, and fast and secured payment.
On the level of transaction that can be done using the new feature, Bolodeoku said, transaction limits are determined by the payer’s bank.
Speaking on the security of the platform, Bolodeoku said the NQR is safe, as the exchange of information via the QR code ensures that any transmitted data on the technology is encrypted, thus making the payment secure.
He said the NQR is built around the universal EMVCO Security Standards, adding that payers are protected by a secret four-digit PIN used to consummate transactions and known to only the payer.
Bolodeoku enjoined customers to set up NQR by first updating ALAT to the latest version before login into the app as a payer, adding that merchants and receivers are also to log in to the ALAT app.
