First National Bank of Botswana and Botswana Power Corporation on Monday formalised an agreement that will make it easier for electricity consumers to pay their bills through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The bank, which is listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), said the move was necessitated by the difficulties that BPC face in collecting revenues from its clients.
“In light of the challenges that Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) is faced with regarding the collection of revenue through its Public Sector Segment, FNB partnered with BPC to deliver a customer centric solution to address this challenge,” the bank said.
The bank outlined that the advantages of using the system is that customers can pay their electricity bills from wherever they are through FNBB online banking, ATMs and cellphone banking.
The bank said the offering will allow customers to pay at any time of the day unlike conventional office operating times.
“Waiting in long queues to pay for bills is now a thing of the past. Through this service, you can easily avoid a hassle of waiting in long queues and the difficulties of running between places for bill payments,” FNBB added in a statement.
The bank advised customers to capture the correct reference, which is their BPC contract number.
The contract number is a 12 digit numeric character and should start with ‘002′. Payments are to be made to BPC’s account number 62301481818 and the branch code is 281467.
Stanbic, the other commercial bank has said electricity consumers can pay their bills from the comfort of their homes by using the bank as a conduit.
This is the typical competition that banks go through as they come up with solutions to attract clients.
Stanbic said BPC customers can pay bills the bank’s new Business Online, internet banking, over the counter at branches countrywide or through direct debit payments.
