PayFast, SA's answer to PayPal

10 Oct 2008

South Africa finally has its own online PayPal-like service for providing online shoppers with a safe credit card-like experience for making payment using Internet banking (EFT). PayFast, an initiative from BidorBuy founder Andy Higgins that came out of beta testing at the beginning of September 2008, is already being used by a number of South African online merchants.

While credit cards are unlikely to be completely replaced with solutions such as www.PayFast.co.za anytime soon, Instant EFT does provide a viable alternative to online shoppers, especially those that do not have credit cards. At the same time, it provides a safer and cheaper payment alternative for South Africa's growing number of online merchants.

Explains Jonathan Smit, MD of PayFast, "Using PayFast's EFT solution is safer than using a credit card as there is no risk of charge backs. PayFast's Instant EFT still gives the benefit of immediate fulfilment of purchases for the buyer and, like credit cards, there is no manual bank reconciliation required for the online merchant.

"The uptake of PayFast has been encouraging so far, with very positive feedback. Many smaller merchants have however also requested a credit card service to complement the EFT solution, which we are currently working on and plan to launch during the course of Q4 2008."

Since being taken out of beta, there have been over a hundred sellers on the popular online marketplace bidorbuy.co.za that have chosen to accept PayFast as a payment method. PayFast also has built payment modules for the popular eCommerce packages, osCommerce and Virtuemart, with more modules for other packages currently under development. This makes it easy for online merchants to accept PayFast on their websites. There is also a full integration option for larger merchants who have their own proprietary software and require a custom integrated solution.