The South African mobile payments space is hotting up with another contender entering the fray. FlickPay is the fifth mobile payments application to be launched in South Africa in recent months and, although it’s not bringing anything particularly new to the space, it has the backing of popular coffee shop franchise Vida e Caffè.
The Cape Town-based company used technology from wiGroup, a business that specialises in integrated point-of-sale mobile transactions. WiGroup provides systems to MTN, Shoprite Checkers, Pick n Pay, Engen, KFC and Vodacom.
FlickPay is funded by private equity players. “It’s the only mobile payment system that is fully integrated into the point of sale,” says MD and co-founder Trent McLelland. “Unlike other systems, FlickPay transactions happen within a closed loop and the teller gets notified on the point-of-sale system that the transaction has been completed.”
FlickPay is also being installed at Fournos, a Johannesburg-based chain of delicatessens, as well as at News Cafe restaurants. McLelland says the company will soon announce the addition of several big retailers.
FlickPay is available for both iOS and Android and works similarly to other mobile payment apps such as Standard Bank’s SnapScan. When users sign up, they add either their Visa or MasterCard details manually or use the app to scan the card.
The FlickPay app also lists all the merchants that accept payments and also features a voucher system that retailers are encouraged to take advantage of. The vouchering allows merchants to offer free goods or discounts. Vouchers are displayed in the app when a user is in the vicinity of a store offering them. Users can also search for vouchers.
Unlike many of its competitors, FlickPay requires merchants to add a QR tag scanning camera to its point-of-sale terminals.
When a user walks up to a till point, they open the app, which then creates a unique QR code. The cashier rings up the goods for purchase and the user pays by pointing the unique QR code on their screen to the camera mounted at the till point. They can then confirm the amount on their device — this is an optional setting — and the transaction is concluded. Both merchant and user get notified that the transaction was successful.
McLelland says FlickPay encrypts bank card details on your phone and at no point is this information stored on a server or made available to the merchant. The company uses the PayU gateway to facilitate transactions.
FlickPay has partnered with Vida e Caffè coffee shops around the country (excluding those situated at Shell garages), offering a free coffee to users who sign up to and use the service for the first time. — © 2014 NewsCentral Media
