Payment verification for a shop that takes transfers all day
What is the best way for an Ethiopian shop to confirm a bank transfer?
Ask the customer for the transaction reference from their confirmation SMS rather than for a screenshot, look it up while they are still at the counter, and check three things on the result: the amount matches, the receiver is your account, and the reference is not one you have already accepted. The whole routine takes a few seconds per sale and it closes every common fraud except a customer paying and then disputing with their bank, which verification cannot help with anyway.
Ask for the reference, not the screenshot
This is the change that does the most work, and it is free. The confirmation SMS the customer already has carries a reference or a link. Reading it out or forwarding the message is less effort than finding a screenshot in a gallery, so customers do it happily once asked.
It also removes the whole category of image fraud at a stroke. There is no picture to edit, and no argument about whether an image looks right.
What slows a counter down
The lookup itself is not the slow part. The slow parts are asking for something the customer has to go and find, and re-checking a payment several times because nobody wrote down the answer.
So: ask for the thing they are already holding, and check once, at the point where goods or service would otherwise leave. Re-checking a receipt you have already confirmed should be instant and cost nothing, and if it does not, that is worth fixing.
What to do when the bank is unreachable
Ethiopian bank receipt services do go down, and during an outage nothing can confirm a payment, because the record simply is not reachable. A verification tool that claims otherwise during an outage is guessing.
Decide the rule in advance rather than in the moment: for small amounts, take the reference, note it, and check when the bank comes back. For amounts you would not want to lose, hold the goods. The useful thing is having decided which is which before a queue forms.
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Paste a receipt link or reference from any of the Ethiopian banks and wallets links.et covers. Free, no account needed.
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