MTN and Pick n Pay are poised to launch a mobile bank. Called Tyme, which stands for “take your money everywhere”, the venture will piggyback on the banking licence held by Bank of Athens.

Tyme hopes to make mobile money transfers and mobile banking commonplace in South Africa, where consumers have to date failed to embrace similar offerings en masse.

A report on Business Day website BDlive says Tyme could be launched officially today, Thursday, and will allow mobile phone users to set up an account using their handset and send money to any other South African with a mobile phone.

Users of the service can pay for goods or deposit or withdraw cash at any Pick n Pay or Boxer store, purchase prepaid airtime or electricity from their mobile phone, view mini statements of transactions, and receive SMS notifications of all transactions. There are no monthly fees and no minimum deposit is required to open an account.

Those wishing to open an account must be over the age of 16 and have a South African ID number. Customers can register for the service using a USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) code. The same USSD service can be used to retrieve account details so that users can receive electronic payments from other banks.

When sending money, if the recipient does not have an account, they will be prompted to register for one before they are able to withdraw money.

The maximum account balance is R25 000 and the daily transaction limit is R1 000. Users do not earn interest on their account balances. In addition to mini statements that are SMSed, users can request that fuller statements be sent to them via e-mail.

Users can send money to any South African mobile phone user. Both MTN customers and users of other mobile networks pay R4 per till-point deposit or withdrawal, and non-MTN customers pay R1 to send money. MTN customers can send money free of charge.

In order to make a withdrawal or use a Tyme account to pay for goods in a Pick n Pay or Boxer outlet, users must request the appropriate code using USSD. The code will be valid for 15 minutes and is quoted to the cashier.

Tyme is underpinned by MTN’s Mobile Money mobile payments solution, its equivalent of Vodacom’s M-Pesa, a service that has failed to gain traction in South Africa despite its enormous success in Kenya and Tanzania.

The involvement of Bank of Athens in the new venture raises questions about the status of MTN’s relationship with Standard Bank, which was previously a key partner for the mobile operator’s Mobile Money solution.