South African bank Nedbank has teamed with payment giant Mastercard and local FinTech Ukheshe to allow its customers to pay small businesses through WhatsApp.
Following registration, micro and small businesses can use the created platform – called Money Message – to send a WhatsApp request-to-pay message to customers through a South African identity document and bank account.
First-time users of the service will be sent an SMS prompting them to register for Money Message. Users will then be required to put in their name and register their card details to be able to send payments through the social network via a QR code or phone number.
According to Nedbank, the system has been in beta with a small group of micro-merchants for around a month and will now be gradually expanded.
Nedbank emerging payments executive Chipo Mushwana said, “Money Message looks to overcome a variety of cost, security and technical barriers by enabling micro-merchants and their customers to transact with each other easily on an existing platform, which is WhatsApp.”
Mastercard recently acquired Seattle-based startup Ekata for $850m. Ekata – a company that operates in three industries including payments, e-commerce and financial services – sells identity verification products to help over 2,000 businesses track good and bad actors.
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