In conjunction with Mastercard and South African fintech player Ukheshe, Nedbank has introduced a feature that will enable its customers to make payments to businesses in WhatsApp.
The new feature 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.
"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." Chipo Mushwana, Nedbank emerging payments executive
The recent innovation by Nedbank allows merchants to send an invoice requesting payment from any customer through WhatsApp. The customer, in turn, can settle 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." Chipo Mushwana.
Anyone with a valid South African Identity Document and a South African bank account can access Money Message. Merchants will first need to register for the service.
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.
