Kampala — Last week Commonwealth Financial Solutions (U) Ltd unveiled its Zipp card, a plastic debit card that will allow users to hold, transfer cash and transact at designated places.

For only sh350 per transaction, customers will be able to transfer money within the country, irrespective of the amounts.

The Zipp card is the latest addition to a variety of cards that are slowly gaining currency among Ugandan consumers.

The more frequently used include ATM cards (instant withdrawal and depositing), fuel cards, smart cards, debit and credit cards.

If you have lived in a society where plastic or mobile money is a way of life, it is not a surprise that carrying cash around should be considered an unnecessary inconvenience.

All efforts to popularise plastic money should be given the attention they deserve given the benefits of convenience and safety.

Curiously, even with the increasing customer sophistication, the uptake of available plastic money is not that high to match the growing middle class in the country.

A good number of people have cited safety concerns and lack of knowledge about such products as some of the reasons for low usage of the plastic currency.

One way of increasing plastic money usage is by networking our Visa debit /ATM cards to Point of Sale that allow customers to make payments with their cards without the inconvenience of drawing cash. This allows for cash to be used only in areas that don't have POS terminals.

Further still, plastic money arguably will allow roping in the hugely unbanked population into the formal financial sector.

While consumers in urban areas have several options to chose from like an ATM a few meters away, credit and debit cards or online banking services, a big portion of the population with little or no income have never visited a banking hall.

Sadly, they still keep cash in their market stalls or under mattresses because of the prohibitive costs of banking. Some are probably intimidated by banks or do not have any operational branch within reach.

To get such customers on board, plastic money could be one of the channels to get them introduced to banking services.

With services like mobile money transfer via the phone or plastic card at a low cost gaining momentum, it could be an incentive to get them acquainted and appreciate banking services.

If they can get the money remitted at a low cost or loaded and stored onto a card at no cost, it will be easier to get them to pick up the habit of not keeping cash. Earning points for transacting with the card is also an incentive.

More still, farmers can also be brought on board to use these pre-paid cards to purchase fertilizers, seeds and other farm implements.

Given that some financial institutions consider this category high cost customers, the availability mobile terminals spread throughout the country could be the initial step to get them banked.

More importantly, the issue of safety for customer deposits shouldn't be compromised.

A law would be useful to secure payments and prevent money laundering. Customers are surprisingly very careless with their Personal Identification Numbers (PINs), an avenue that fraudsters use. Any transaction deemed unusual should enlist a phone call to the cardholder for verification so that any anomaly is stopped.

To avoid high levels of bad debt and bad spending habits, these plastic cards should be operated on a pre-paid platform with some cap regarding withdrawals.

It is also important for customers to read carefully the terms and conditions for these services prior to signing up so as to know their rights and obligation and avoid misunderstandings or unnecessary costs.

In a country where there are no national identification, registered users for mobile phone money services and plastic money will allow these gadgets to act as identification.

Their PIN and account number on the SIM card could also act as their virtual card

I'm looking forward to a time when mobile phone or plastic money is regularly used to transfer money, pay for a taxi fare or utility bills as a way of transacting business in our daily lives.