Cape Town-Based Payment24 Announces Expansion Into New Geographies And New Industries

Payment24, the global platform provider specialising in payment and loyalty solutions, today announced that the organisation is enjoying continued growth, has significantly expanded operations and acquired several new logo clients as it diversifies its business beyond a provider of solutions for the fuel industry and banks only.

In support, the company has also announced the significant global expansion of its operations into North America and Europe and ongoing product innovation with the launch of Cloud Switch, the expansion of its loyalty platform, the inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI) across its products, and a bold move into the electric vehicles (EV) space.

The organisation’s geographical reach has expanded considerably, and Payment24 has a deployment presence in five continents in close to 17 countries.

According to its executive team, following on its success in Africa and Latin America region, its sights are set on Europe and North America, and in 2022 the company opened its doors in Boston. Based on the growing interest and demand for its solutions, a platform specifically tailored to the North American market will be released in the next six months. Further, it has extended its reach in Europe with the investment in a business based in Geneva, Switzerland, from which it will serve the needs of the European market.

Since its launch, Payment24 has one of the largest private label refuelling networks in South Africa and neighbouring countries and is on target to facilitate the payments of more than half of the fuel stations in the country. This is alongside an extensive network supporting cross-border refuelling in hundreds of locations across over ten African countries. Based on its expansive and growing loyalty footprint, which sees billions of litres of fuel transacted through the Payment24 platform annually, it is now also one of the largest fuel loyalty providers in the country. This follows a growing retail loyalty footprint, which with the recent inclusion of click-and-collect and mobile payment modules to its platform, is experiencing exceptional growth across a diverse retail market.

Due to the diversity of the company’s platform and its evolution from being a dominant player in only the oil space to its expansion into other industries, Payment24 has announced that it has streamlined its offerings into industry-specific solutions catering to six core industries, including banking, oil, retail, convenience, transport, and logistics.

According to Shadab Rahil, CEO of Payment24, the company’s renewed focus and categorisation of its offerings provides a clear direction of where it can assist customers while helping them better understand how the platform supports their business.

“We have experienced exceptional growth over the past three years and continue to enjoy significant success in the banking and oil industries,” says Rahil.

“Since the expansion of our platform and the modules we provide, we have made notable inroads into the retail, payments acquiring, and fleet management space, having secured several new customers in these sectors over the last two years. To support this growth, we have more than doubled our headcount in the last two years, and because more than 50% of our business comes from outside the South African borders, 33% of our team is now based outside of the country.

“As an R&D company, Payment24 invests heavily in our development teams, which is quickly being matched by a growing support team, especially in Central America, as demand mounts for localised support in each country we operate.”

Technical and Product Evolution

In the last three years, the company has matured the core competencies of its fleet and fuel payment and loyalty offerings by introducing additional payment channels and customer engagement methods such as WhatsApp and USSD, as well as the overall enhancement of its loyalty platform. Its focus has also been extended to provide service offerings to the car rental and the banking industry, underpinned by its launch of Cloud Switch. This cloud-based acquiring solution is a fully integrated standalone offering that is today being used by several banks across the continent as their primary payment acquiring tool.

According to Payment24, its loyalty offering is receiving incredible interest. Based on the complex nature of loyalty transactions, the company has expanded its platform to include multiple loyalty options for its customers depending on the nature of the industry and the transaction itself. This is clearly defined in the product roadmap it delivers to customers who can invest in a finance, fleet, or retail solution today and then add a loyalty component as their needs evolve.

To support the growing global demand for alternative fuel and energy sources, the company has recently developed and enabled modules and support for electric vehicles (EV) on its platform, providing oil companies with an effective means to transact across both EV and fossil fuel transactions. This includes developing a tailored system to support European and EU requirements.

“It’s important to meet your customers where they are and simultaneously offer them a roadmap for the future of their business while melding this with future technologies. This approach provides stickiness between you and your customers while ensuring you can walk a longer road with them,” says Nolan Daniel, CEO at Payment24.

“Another key evolutionary step for us is identifying the effective and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) across our entire platform. We are already looking at improving automation and elevating the customer experience using AI and believe this will become an essential part of the future of Payment24.”

While traditionally leaders and experts in the closed-loop payment space, the company has also expanded its offering to support open-loop EMV (MasterCard and Visa) payments by adding its own issuing and acquiring open-loop EMV platform to its platform. This solution melds the security features inherent in its traditional closed-loop solution with the newly mandated open-loop requirements, providing transactional customers with an extra layer of security.

The core features of the Payment24 solution promise continue to be underpinned by an open platform that supports high integration with third-party technology and software providers. It is also 100% hardware agnostic, works with partners and competitors when required, and delivers all its services in real time.

“Looking ahead, 2023 will be a watershed year for Payment24, where we will be announcing our expansion into new geographies supported by the announcement of several new key technologies and several significant new customers. Our reach and influence is one of our greatest success stories and we are looking forward to helping our customers globally transform their business and improve their customer experience through the application of our technologies,” ends Rahil.