Simtel is a privately owned company with shareholders made up of the National Bank of Rwanda and all six licensed commercial banks in the country, as well as the Savings, Union Bank and the post office.

The company will use the Base24-es system to acquire, authenticate, route, switch and authorise card transactions on behalf of the commercial banks in Rwanda. The system is powered by a scripting engine that enables users to alter rules governing authentication and authorisation without having to write new source code.

Simtel is also deploying ACI's Card Management System to manage card accounts and personalisation processes. Both the ACI products will initally be used to support the issue of chip-based Visa debit and credit cards.

The products will also be used to issue and manage pre-authorised debit cards, which can only be used for offline purchases. Simtel says it will use pre-authorised debit to offer card-based payment services to customers who have no credit history and where online authentication is not possible. Visa says pre-authorised debit is an important offering for emerging African countries as it offers greater risk management capabilities, which benefits financial firms without detracting from the consumer advantages of card payments.

Commenting on the implementation of Base24-es, Roger Munyampenda, director general of Simtel, says the company expects a steady growth in transaction volumes as consumer demand for card payments rises: "ACI's solution will accommodate this trend as the system is engineered for scalability.

"ACI's modular solution set for payment transactions allows Simtel to build infrastructure for future areas such as mobile commerce and the management of multiple application smart cards."

ACI says the project with the Republic of Rwanda will give it a significant foothold in the African continent.