“Banks are not making it easy for individual traders or small and informal traders to open bank accounts.”
This‚ said Peggy Drodske of the South African Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SACCI) on Monday‚ “has to change”.
Drodske said the industry “should make a greater effort to bring small business enterprises into the banking system so that they can take advantage of systems like debit orders and electronic funds transfer mechanisms to settle accounts rather than relying on cash payments”.
“The issue of tax is also important because these businesses should be brought into the taxation net.”
Fred Steffers – managing director of SmartCollect — said debit orders could help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) keep “their doors open because it would immediately reduce their debt load and ease the cash-flow crisis that many of them experience every month”.
Steffers explained that “middle- and lower-income earners are still largely locked into a cash-based payment system” which “is risky because it means that they often have to walk around with large sums of cash on them”.
Debit orders are‚ Steffers claimed‚ “by far the most cost effective and safest way to make payments”‚ with less than 1% of the 60 million debit orders processed monthly being fraudulent or “problematic”.
Should fraud occur‚ claimed Steffers‚ consumers are able to cancel the debit orders “quickly and easily”.
“It is in fact incumbent upon the consumer’s bank to cancel and reverse the debit order on a no-questions-asked basis provided it is done within 30 days of the debit order appearing on the client’s bank statement‚” he said.
Banks should offer small traders more services: SACCI
“Banks are not making it easy for individual traders or small and informal traders to open bank accounts.”
This‚ said Peggy Drodske of the South African Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SACCI) on Monday‚ “has to change”.
Drodske said the industry “should make a greater effort to bring small business enterprises into the banking system so that they can take advantage of systems like debit orders and electronic funds transfer mechanisms to settle accounts rather than relying on cash payments”.
“The issue of tax is also important because these businesses should be brought into the taxation net.”
Fred Steffers – managing director of SmartCollect — said debit orders could help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) keep “their doors open because it would immediately reduce their debt load and ease the cash-flow crisis that many of them experience every month”.
Steffers explained that “middle- and lower-income earners are still largely locked into a cash-based payment system” which “is risky because it means that they often have to walk around with large sums of cash on them”.
Debit orders are‚ Steffers claimed‚ “by far the most cost effective and safest way to make payments”‚ with less than 1% of the 60 million debit orders processed monthly being fraudulent or “problematic”.
Should fraud occur‚ claimed Steffers‚ consumers are able to cancel the debit orders “quickly and easily”.
“It is in fact incumbent upon the consumer’s bank to cancel and reverse the debit order on a no-questions-asked basis provided it is done within 30 days of the debit order appearing on the client’s bank statement‚” he said.
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