New mobile payment system goes live in SA
VALUE ADDED SERVICES
| July 9, 2014, 9:23 a.m.
Mobile payment system Zapper has launched its innovative and secure payment app for smartphones in South Africa. The application is already available in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden and will soon be available in Germany.
Derek Wiggill, general manager of Zapper in South Africa, says the app is being launched in the restaurant sector first in this country, but will thereafter be rapidly rolled out into e-commerce and the payment of all bills.
“Zapper is already live at 100 sites, with another 150 already scheduled to go live shortly,” Wiggill says. “Because of this phenomenal growth, in terms of our staff complement we are going from 18 people to 101 in 90 days.”
Zapper enables restaurants and outlets to add unique dynamic QR Codes to till slips, allowing the customers to make payments using their smart phone. When the customer is presented with the bill, they simply open the app, scan the QR Code and confirm the prepopulated amount to be paid. Their card is charged and they receive an email receipt instantly at which time the business gets immediate notification that they’ve been paid.
A handy feature for restaurants allows for the tip to be added via selecting the desired percentage, and for the bill to be split in different ways when friends are “going Dutch”. All transactions are saved in the cloud and can be e-mailed to the user in PDF format as required.
Faster than using a credit card, Zapper offers greater security as well. Debit or credit card details are encrypted on the phone, and are never transmitted over the network. Multiple cards can be loaded allowing the user to pay for personal bills with their own card and business expenses with their corporate card.
For restaurateurs—and merchants in general—Zapper offers numerous advantages. It relieves some of the pressure on front-office staff, allowing them to focus on the customer experience. Zapper has no setup fee and pricing is extremely competitive with a free three-month trial period and then a negotiated rate starting at 2.7 percent or less. Zapper easily integrates with the POS system and augments the offering to Merchants with, in-application targeted messaging and vouchers, which with Zapper will provide a seamless and paperless way for the consumer to redeem vouchers.
Because Zapper is integrated with the point-of-sale system, it’s easy to cash up and keep the accounts balanced.
“Much more important, in my view, Zapper provides merchants with customer information they have never previously had, presented in an easy-to-use dashboard format,” Wiggill continues. “This means they can start to understand who their customers are, and develop tailored marketing and special offers to build their businesses and improve profitability. And customers benefit too as they will start to receive vouchers and offers that reward their loyalty and reflect their preferences. This is the future of payment, and we’ll be rolling it out into e-commerce and other vertical markets very soon.”
