Retailers bemoans failed transactions spike

Published: 04 February 2018
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers Association (CZRA) has noted with concern frequent delays by banks to address failed electronic transactions which is prejudicing both retailers and customers resulting in irregularities in their bank statements.

CZRA president Mr Denford Mutashu told Sunday Business that his association has since engaged retailers to run audits to iron out irregularities that are caused by failed transactions.

"We have received a lot of complaints of late because most of the times some of the electronic transactions take time to go through and it takes time for banks to do the reversals of failed translations. You will even realise that there are irregularities in their bank statements in terms of the money that comes in and out because some of the money gets into some account or gets stuck in the air," he said.

Mr Mutashu called on the banking sector to own up to the failed transactions.

"So far we have aided retailers to engage their auditors to run effective audits for them, but banks should own up for those failed transactions. It will be best for audit companies to effectively reconcile those statements," he said.

One of the retail operators Mr Joseph Marshall Steward who owns Beluge clothing shop in Hillside in Bulawayo said he had to wait for three months to get his money back after a transaction with a client failed.

"I had to wait for about three months for the transaction to be reversed and get my money back and this is not the first time, even for mobile transactions the customers can get a confirmation message that he or she has paid but it takes time for the transaction to reflect on our machines and we end up letting them go even before we get those confirmations on our system because it usually takes time," said Mr Steward.

This comes at a time when electronic transactions have become the widely used form of payment with official statistics showing that 70 percent of the retail transactions were done electronically countrywide last year.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa has also engaging banks to extend their banking facilities to rural marginalised areas amid the cash crisis.


- online
Tags: Retailers,

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