Pan-African technology services group, TrustPay, has defined a new space in the mobile money, cross-border, cashless payment sector.
Designed specifically with merchants (product, service suppliers and businesses) in mind, TrustPay, today officially launched its unique range of innovative m/e Commerce merchant solutions that are set to accelerate economic growth in developing markets.
Trustpay is not a mobile money platform. Nor is it a payment gateway or a switch. It is much more. TrustPay is a versatile, interoperable, international merchant services mechanism that facilitates trade, especially in emerging markets. It does this by connecting merchants and consumers to one another through the assimilation of all traditional and ‘exotic’ payment systems, into one cohesive platform.
Exotic (non-traditional) payments, such as mobile money (eg M-Pesa in Kenya), street cash vouchers (eg 484 in Nigeria) or even highly localised payment systems like Boleto in Brazil, are for the most part, not available to international merchants by law and nor do they use major currencies like euro or US dollar.
Through pooling vast numbers of merchants, Trustpay has set up the systems to manage compliance, settle collections and connect these merchants to local payment sources, where they find them. This now allows for a broader trading arena for merchants and a greater source of choice for consumers.
How does it work? Using a single ‘Application Programme Interface’ (API) – mobile money, vouchers, bank cards, carrier billing and of course credit cards, and more – the unique interface integrates into pretty much any payment system.
The simplicity of this is that a merchant can now easily accept payment from any type of customer, (consumer or business), who can choose a variety of local payment methods in which to settle the transaction. It further enables small and large organisations access to a multitude of payment types without the need for costly individual set-up and maintenance costs.
Says Cape Town based, Sean Condé, co-Founder, TrustPay: “We have worked across Africa for a number of years and witnessed the growth of different types of cashless payment systems. We realised there was a need for a common-denominator platform that could provide a simple but effective exchange between all the parties for trade and settlement. TrustPay is the culmination of several years of investigation, negotiation and technological development that has been rigorously tested and that will now facilitate international commerce even in remote areas.”
Available globally, TrustPay has chosen to focus much of its efforts on emerging markets, realising the huge difference between traditional payments and exotic sources coming out of these territories.
In the EMEA region, the company is operational in several countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Niger, DRC, Mali, Tanzania, South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, UAE with further territories including Ghana in the pipeline. In South Africa for example, its application and service is on offer to a broad range of eCommerce and MCommerce site developers and businesses.
It also has agreements with a number of municipality suppliers that are now able to offer their consumers the option to pay for their utilities via a payment method of their choice.
South America, much like Africa, has also seen innovation in the cashless payment market. In Brazil, the world’s third biggest online purchasing market) TrustPay has a partnership with Brazil’s biggest end-to-end payment system, EBANX.
Through its service, TrustPay now provides a secure platform for merchants wanting to get into Brazil while customers have a bigger basket from which to choose.
TrustPay has honed in on the need for merchants to be able to transact and grow their businesses beyond urban city centres. While distribution may remain a challenge in many of the territories, the problem of guaranteed payment has been solved and the world of online purchasing can now go beyond borders. TrustPay manages settlement, multiple rules and regulations regarding VAT, withholding taxes, bank regulations and settlement procedures, currency risk and dispute mechanisms with their payment partners.
For eCommerce and mCommerce site developers, TrustPay’s API is easily incorporated into a wide variety of platforms, including WooCommerce and Opencart with many more on the cards. TrustPay also extends the product offering for mobile money sources and has a number of licensed sports betting houses utilising its services across the African continent.
In a market predicted to have over 448-million mobile payment users by 2016 (Gartner), there is more than a requirement; there is an absolute need, to create a robust and stable ‘platform-exchange’ to cope with the soaring number of mobile payment products (over 190 worldwide according to Omlis in 2014).
