PAY@: Simplifying Life for Bill Issuers and Bill Payers

In September 2021, despite rough economic conditions brought about by the Covid pandemic, Pay@ was experiencing a strong period. This South African payment aggregator and partner of bill issuers around the continent was realising revenue growth and new opportunities in new geographies as news spread of the company’s problem-solving nature.

Backed by the largest independent network of collection points, Pay@ assists in one of Africa’s key challenges – financial inclusion. With more than 9000 retail points around South Africa, anyone with a bill to pay could easily go to any small town, in the middle of any province, no matter how remote, and walk into a store to settle their bill.

“We are super excited about the next three years,” said CEO Andrew Hardie in 2021.

This innovator has continued to drive success, nurturing relationships with bill issuers and retailers around the country, while simplifying the process for end-consumers. With a focus on digitisation and being part of the global financial transition, in a country that is traditionally a cash-based society, Pay@ is working hard to continue adapting for its clients.

This nimble strategy has allowed the company to once again achieve strong revenue growth.

“Things are definitely still looking good and that is probably because of where we play. We give access to the unbanked or under-banked and that is critical,” reiterates Barry Williams, Head of Sales, Marketing and Retail Relations at Pay@.

While some business models were choked by the restrictions on movement through 2020 and 2021, Pay@’s unique service allowed for the continued flow of money – the lifeblood of any economy.   

“With lockdowns, people still needed to pay bills and send money across borders,” says Williams. “Our payment channels allowed for the flow of cash from client to biller and from client to family, and that helped us. Because we have a leg in both physical and digital payments – it allowed customers to partake in financial services in their preferred channel.”

Clinton Leask, Business Development Lead for Digital Payments at Pay@, highlights the company’s broad portfolio of payment options as a key element in its success.

“We are extremely excited about where Pay@ is going,” he agrees. “There is no other payment provider in South Africa that has the amount of payment capabilities that we have, covering both retail and digital. Even if we had to just look at our digital suite alone against e-commerce players, we have far more capability built over the last year compared to other players in the market.”

OPEN BANKING

Changing consumer behaviour that comes as part of the pandemic legacy has seen banks and other institutions utilising modern digital solutions that make payments easier than ever. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow intermediaries to communicate with different applications that are being rolled out by banks in South Africa, and their popularity is growing in 2022 as developers drive innovation and collaboration. For Pay@ the open banking model offers many opportunities for bill presentment and settlement.

“On the digital side, we are progressing well with integrating into the open banking APIs and facilitating payment notifications to billers; we are also doing cool things with the Telcos in terms of digital payments, and the company is in a very good space with many opportunities,” says Leask.

“We are working with the banks and leveraging their capabilities,” he adds. “We were the first payment processor to get access to the Capitec Pay API which is their open banking API. We have been supporting the banks in open banking APIs where we integrate into their flows, and crafting customer journeys with each bank having a different way of working.

“We are currently live in the Nedbank Money and FNB Banking Apps for bill payments and very close to piloting with Capitec – for example, some of our billers like DStv can now allow customers to open their banking app, select DStv and process the payment and have the bill amount directly populated into the app.

“We have a well-established API – the network API – and banks can integrate into us to process bill payments in App and on other banking channels.”

Importantly, this ongoing cooperation alongside the country’s banks gives bill issuers and bill payers more options, speaking directly to the core offering of Pay@. As a leading payment solutions provider, the company must have options for all, and must do more to ensure payments happen as quickly as possible. Because of its success here, Pay@ remains a partner of choice for commercial bills, enabling money transfers, municipal and utility bills, insurance payments, medical bills, education payments, gaming, travel, debt collection and loan repayment, among others. Williams says the key to nurturing relationships with bill issuers and retailers lays in simplicity and excellence around service delivery.

“It’s all about simplifying their lives,” he states. “We take away a lot of their pain from a reconciliation and settlement point of view. That is where the aggregating comes into its own. If there are hundreds billers, they don’t have to worry about hundreds of integrations generating hundreds of different recon and settlement processes. It’s one recon, one settlement.

“We are also always contactable,” he furthers. “If a retailer picks up the phone, they will always get hold of someone at Pay@ and that is very important if there is a crisis. With that, we build trust. We find that our retailers bring customers to us because of the simplified ecosystem. They don’t have to think about anything, just activating the new biller. That is what nurtures the long relationships that we enjoy – we solve problems.”

PAYMENT RELEVANCE

By helping money move between accounts quicker and safer than ever before – whether in cash or digital form – Pay@, through strategic partnerships, has the ability to provide the best possible service to clients and predict the next trends in the payment industry. QR codes, retailer or service provider apps, ecommerce – hosted payment pages, super apps, mobile money wallets, contactless payments are all rails that Pay@ has products for and is utilising to present bills in relevant ways for clients.

“We are also excited about the opportunities that will be opened through the Rapid Payments solution being introduced by the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) and BankservAfrica,” notes Leask.

Because of this superior level of convenience, Pay@ service continues to be demanded by players across Africa. Already active in a number of southern African nations, the company is keen to grow its footprint even further into other Africa territories.

“We are 99% complete with technical integration with one of our service providers in Africa. The integration will open up Zambia specifically, and allow us to open up in more stores in Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, and eSwatini. Progress has been made, contracts have been signed, and it’s just the technical stuff that we are trying to conclude so that we can open up those territories,” says Williams.

“Zambia is definitely a focus, we are getting a lot of requests from Mozambique, and we are also receiving requests from Angola. Zambia and Mozambique will be quicker, and Angola will be slightly more challenging and require more attention. We are also launching a new channel in Zimbabwe shortly and that will take in-country payments rather than having someone to pay for DStv in South Africa.”

Leask adds: “There are international opportunities that are definitely worth reviewing. We are currently engaging with a partner in Latin America – a global organisation looking to deploy locally in South Africa. Off the back of that we will look to expand in Latin America off the back of some of their services.”

Here, Pay@ will offer software-as-a-service and presentment-as-a-service with a Latin American party operating the system.

YAP

In the SME space at home in South Africa, Pay@ has built Yap, a multi-platform solution designed to remove hassle of generating invoices and collecting payments for small businesses. Through this product, users can issue invoices and payment requests which are delivered directly to clients with a simple payment link. This function also takes advantage of QR codes for in-person payments. The concept is simple, easy, and convenient, but most importantly, security is built in as the backbone of the product. In 2022, Yap will be overhauled and improved to be even better for bill issuers and bill payers.

“It’s nice and easy to use and you don’t need an ERP or accounting package, it manages your cashflow for payments and you get access to all the payment methods that our big billers have, whether it’s through a retailer or online,” details Leask. “We are enhancing that product currently and we are adding APIs to leverage that as their own. If a bank or retailer or another organisation wanted to offer this capability to their own customers to run their businesses, they could do that through this concept.”

Yap is yet another tool that drives inclusion and simplicity. Pay@ remains at the forefront of innovation in this space and continues to champion transparency and efficiency in its solutions.  

UNDER PRESSURE

In 2021, key challenges for Pay@ came in the form of uncertainty and lack of knowledge around the quickly changing circumstances with lockdowns and unpredictable regulatory changes. With these conditions (hopefully) now a thing of the past, the new challenges for the company are wider macro-economic issues as Williams explains.

“It’s about the current economic state,” he says. “The end user who actually pays the bills is under pressure and their cashflow is set to become a challenge. During the pandemic, many creditors provided payment holidays or similar and they are starting to call in those debts. With fuel prices going up, inflation, and cost of living increases, this will be the next challenge. We notice that the average value of payments is dropping – customers are making more frequent payments but in smaller values so that they can manage their cashflow on a daily basis.”

Those preferring tech-based means are following a similar pattern: “On the digital side we see exactly the same thing. We see average value coming down with more frequent payments,” says Leask.

“We currently have many opportunities and are hiring on the tech side to bolster our capacity  that is a good space to be but also something we have to be careful in managing client and partner expectations,” Leask adds.

Williams is excited about the future, again highlighting one of the core pillars of the company’s vision as a driver of growth.

“We are growing on two fronts by giving customers a choice in the payment mechanism they are most comfortable with. The balance shifts each month, but digital and cash payments are both extremely important for us.”

The future, while hectic and busy, will see Pay@ continue to achieve further growth by becoming more important in the lives of its clients. To do this, Leask says the company will follow its tried and tested tactic: “Expanding payment methods and supporting our billers,” he concludes.