Nedbank, working with Mastercard and South African fintech player Ukheshe, has launched the ability for banking clients to make payments to businesses in Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp.

The new offering, called Money Message, lets small and micro businesses receive secure in-chat payments from their customers via WhatsApp. It has been specifically developed to process payments for merchants and small businesses, Nedbank said.

The solution allows merchants to send an invoice requesting a payment from any customer through WhatsApp. The customer, in turn, can settle a payment directly in the app.

“To support entrepreneurship and sustainable business growth across all markets, we need to deliver low-cost, accessible and flexible solutions that leverage widely accessible technologies,” said Nedbank emerging payments executive Chipo Mushwana in a statement on Wednesday.

“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.”

Roll-out

Anyone with a valid South African identity document and South African bank account can access Money Message. Merchants will first need to register for the service.

The business owner sends a request-to-pay message to the customer and for first-time users, a notification is sent via SMS prompting them to register. The customer enters their name and registers their card details to make the payment securely. This means that customers can make secure, cardless payments via their cellphone numbers or QR codes.

A beta version of Money Message has been available to a small selection of micro merchants for just over a month and the product will gradually be rolled out to the broader market during the rest of the year. — © 2021 NewsCentral Media