Convergent billing moves African m-health offering

African healthcare provider Sanlam Health has struck a deal with systems integrator GlobeTOM to offer mobile health services to large undeveloped areas of Africa.

To make the project viable, Sanlam Health partnered with operators including MTN and integrator GlobeTOM to deploy a transparent and convergent billing platform to process detailed accounts for pre and post-pay users.

According to Philip Stander, managing director of GlobeTOM, agile convergent billing platforms play a pivotal role in tracking multiple billing transactions from various third party providers. “Convergent billing and revenue assurance in this sense, is as important to third party service providers and mobile networks as a watertight tax collection process is to a government,” said Stander.

Other billing gateway applications include services such as insurance and prepaid distribution. “What they get is a single interface for their business service delivery billing irrespective of the network needed to integrate and deliver the service. The platform is network agnostic; an ideal platform for service delivery across coexistent but competing networks,” said Stander.