Tax collector adds UBA swipe card option

March 30, 2017 in Business, Companies, Financial Services, Technology & Telecoms by Editor

March 30–Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) wants to completely phase out cash payments and is encouraging tax payers to use available digital platforms not only to improve efficiency, but reduce any chances of corruption.

The process, which first took off in 2005 is however gaining momentum in recent years.  URA has added another partner, namely United Bank of Africa (Uganda) for the provision of online and point of sale (P0S) card swiping facilities powered by Visa and MasterCard.

Doris Akol, the URA Commissioner General said paying cash is quickly becoming outdated in certain areas of commerce. ‘The URA/UBA  online  and point  of sale  (PoS ) card swiping methods,  powered by  VISA cards and MasterCard, will enable taxpayers to pay for taxes  and other government services in a faster, easier and more convenient way. This will also improve Uganda’s ranking in the World Banks doing Business evaluation’, she said.

She said UBA is the first of the URA 23 partnering banks to achieve this milestone and thanked India’s TATA Consultancy Services for providing the technical support.

The CEO of UBA (Uganda) Johnson Agoreyo  said, ‘Digitalized banking is the way to go and UBA has had the experience over time and that is why it was effortless to partner with URA in simplified revenue drive. UBA will roll out the PoS and online tax payment services in major towns and will appoint agents to render the services.”

Akol suggested reluctant Ugandans should catch up with modern times by shifting to digital to maximize compliance and achieve the goal of a cashless middle income economy.