One of South Africa’s most rapidly expanding fintech, iKhokha, has teamed up with Mastercard to evaluate the viability of rolling out contactless payment methods to businesses across Africa.
With the release of Tap on Phone, firms have provided small businesses with a safe and cost-effective solution for accepting payments.
Customers may make safe, contactless payments by tapping their cards against a merchant’s Android smartphone leveraging this innovative solution, which makes use of near-field communication (NFC) technology. This frees companies from making costly hardware purchases or paying monthly leasing costs to financial institutions.
For small businesses and informal merchants who are typically shut out of the digital economy, the availability of iK Tap on Phone on the free iKhokha app is a particularly appealing and economical choice.
iKhokha’s original Android app now supports payments through Mastercard Tap on Phone. There is a sizable user base for the app, and the functionality is accessible on any Android device. When it comes to delivering digital tools to assist entrepreneurs in launching, managing, and expanding their businesses, iKhokha is the go-to FinTech in the EEMEA region.
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Gain free entry into the digital ecosystem through the product
The research claims that South Africa’s contactless card industry is one of the most developed in Africa, with 62% of all cards in circulation being contactless. This amounts to 25.8 million cards.
South Africa has a large population with contactless cards. However, many small businesses still cannot process digital payments. A great potential, however, exists to allow these SMEs to take contactless payments via their NFC-enabled Android smartphones, attributable to the country’s high smartphone and internet usage.
This context is essential to understanding the instance study’s focus on iKhokha’s iK Tap on Phone and its early success. By allowing companies to take card payments on an Android smartphone, this new innovation eliminates the conventional cost of entry into the digital economy.
With iK Tap on Phone, business owners in South Africa can turn their Android phones into robust, secure point-of-sale (POS) terminals, capitalizing on the country’s very high smartphone penetration rate of 91%.
Additionally, iKhokha plans to disperse approximately R1 billion in working cash through its iK Cash Advance product in 2023. For merchants looking to expand their operations, a three-month period of iK Tap on Phone commerce is all it takes to be eligible for the mentioned funding.
What to know about the iKhokha app
The iKhokha app has a function called “Tap on Phone,” which lets businesses activate the feature, go through a sequence of displays that explain it, and then test it before providing their phone to a client to take payment. Digital receipts may be sent to consumers by SMS or Email whenever the retailer is ready to start utilizing Tap on Phone.
In addition to letting businesses see and share receipts from past purchases with consumers through SMS and email, it also allows them to examine and share client transaction histories. By downloading the iKhokha app or visiting their website, merchants can sign up and have themselves onboarded digitally.
