i-Pay set to Launch in Nigeria

i-Pay Payment Solution, an instant electronic funds transfer (EFT) payment service provider plans to launch service in Nigeria before the end of the year.

Nigeria's reputation for being at the centre of credit card fraud and scams makes it an attractive market for electronic funds transfer (EFT) payment service, i-Pay Payment Solutions.

Thomas Pays, Just Perfect Digital CEO and creator of i-Pay, said the company plans to launch the solution in both Kenya and Nigeria this year.

"Through our partners, we are looking at expanding to Nigeria and Kenya this year. Especially in Nigeria it seems as if there is a lot more fraud in that specific country than anywhere else," he said.

"Because of the fraud-free aspects of i-Pay, there is a strong push from our existing clients and partners to go live there so that they can benefit."

i-Pay does not require the use of a credit card. Customers can make secure online payments directly into a bank account in real-time.

Initially launched for e-commerce Web sites in 2014, i-Pay has now included other industries and enabled every type of business to use the instant EFT solution to accept payments, says Pays.

One of the biggest problems in the South African market is credit card fraud, as there are a lot security issues from both the user and merchant perspective.

According to Pays, his solution allows instant monetisation once the payment has been done and guarantees there will not be any fraud or that the transaction will be reversed.

"We rely on the bank infrastructure. When the payment gets processed, the push message is sent to the user from the bank so that the user can validate the transaction. That whole process remains in place and the only thing that i-Pay does is monetise the transaction and when the payment shows it is successful on the screen, a message will be sent to the merchant that it has been done," he says.

Pays says his company is in commercial discussions with consumer goods distributor, Massmart, to solve its billing issues. The company does billions and billions of transactions on a yearly basis but all that reconciliation takes so much time, he notes.

"From the person that sends a payment with the wrong amount or with the wrong reference or to the wrong account… There is a lot of human error that comes into play, but even from their side what if the capturing is done incorrectly? i-Pay will basically automate that whole process to eliminate human error."

He adds the company is also in discussions with Sage in order to provide its EFT payment solution. "We will provide this service to their 177 000 clients and this is going to be a big opportunity for us."