Financial and Human Capital Software Solutions provider, SystemSpecs, has stressed the need for a comprehensive purpose-built corporate solution that is multi-company, multi-bank and multi-switch in the quest by the Federal Government to implement e-payment.

Speaking during an e-payment forum for the media organised by the company on Thursday, the Managing Director, SystemSpecs, Mr. John Obaro, said this call was necessary considering the need for strong security, delivery of synchronised schedules, provision of document attachments, as well as synchronised tax computations.

Also commenting on the recent Presidential mandate urging all ministries, departments and agencies of the government to implement e-payment, he said the initiative was actually the ability to pay suppliers, contractors, vendors and staff electronically at the touch of a button.

According to him, this involves sending all payment instructions electronically and receiving the feedback electronically.

He said this did not mean “manual delivery of payment instructions to banks via CDs, flash drives or even email attachments.

Obaro said there were factors militating against the use of e-payment solutions in Nigeria, and they included infrastructure/bandwidth constraints, the use of applications designed from bank/switch perspective, isolated bank portals and switches not designed for bulk payments.

He said these weaknesses had resulted in a high failure rate, increasing reconciliation challenges and lack of facilities for attachments among others.

SystemSpecs, which is currently providing e-payment services through its Remita platform, Obaro noted, recognised encryption, online certificate and firewall, as relevant technologies, while utilising password, pin, soft tokens and biometrics identity channels.

He said a true e-payment solution should be able to monitor the execution of payment instructions, view records of all payment carried out via the solution and all activities of each, adding that contribution schedules should be delivered simultaneously to relevant parties.

Obaro explained that the process must be very easy to set-up and use, and it should require only minimal infrastructure and implementation.

The SystemSpecs boss also noted that e-payment solutions should be able to issue multiple payment instructions against all existing bank accounts.