THE QUIET RISE OF WALLETTEC TO BE A LEADER IN MOBILE PAYMENT INTEGRATION

Johan Meyer

Founder and CEO of Wallettec

For businesses that wish to transact different digital wallets, that is, to accept any mobile transaction or currency type at a Point of Sale, Wallettec, a Cape Town based company, has been quietly making this possible for a number of companies in Africa, Asia and North America.

Today, Wallettec operates in more than 20 countries across Africa, Canada, South East Asia and the Middle East with clients ranging from banks, movie streaming services, fintech insurance services, retailers, small businesses, transport services and remittance companies.  

For founder, Johan Meyer, starting Wallettec was a no brainer considering his strong positive belief in the future of mobile payment and fintech globally. “My background is mobile and banking and I knew that I needed to create a product that would make mobile payments effective for every Point of sale without the hassle of being complicated by different digital wallets. I’m glad we’ve been successful in different market, building partnerships with lean staff and affordable marketing. Our reputation has really helped us”, says Meyer. 

Wallettec allows consumers to transact at the Point Of Sale or any payment platform through a single integration, using their mobile phones. There are no credit or debit cards required and no third party apps. All a consumer needs is a mobile device and a bank account. This means a merchant does not need to have any mobile money account and or to apply for an Airtel, M-Pesa or MTN mobile money account to accept mobile payments.

A merchant also doesn’t need to be concerned about different transaction costs or how the merchant is going to get the money into his bank account. Wallettec enables a merchant to accept payments from any mobile money provider directly into his bank account and to top it all, currency conversions are automatically taken care of. 

According to Meyer, it makes transactions very effective and hassle free for clients and that’s been the cornerstone of the company success including its security system. Security, admits Meyer, is still the biggest concern in the mobile money industry and Wallettec has been successful in that department. “We’ve never had any single complaint”. 

Research reveals that most payment aggregators and payment processing companies are spending millions of dollars protecting payment information; yet, most of them are constantly under threat of being hacked or putting personal and payment information at risk. Wallettec has been successful in eliminating this risk by removing all information from the process and not permitting the  transmission of any payment or personal information via its system.

And at no point in the payment process will any consumer information or payment information be known to Wallettec or the merchant and this making Wallettec one of the most secure payment processes around.  While most of its competitors concentrate on protecting data, the Wallettec solution leaves sensitive data out of the equation. The company doesn’t need to know your personal or payment information to process a payment. 

Commenting on the state of fintech industry in Africa and the world, Meyer says, “I travel the continent and Asia a lot and the kind of innovation you see is outstanding; seeing how entrepreneurs are solving problems through mobile means and making people’s lives better. Fintech is probably the greatest innovation we are going to see this century. Its potential is huge from payments, to remittance, insurance, data collection, ecommerce, governments services, small businesses and of course, banks etc.  

By working with the Fintech industry, financial institutions can benefit from new technologies that will enable them to decrease fraud and increase their revenue by knowing more about user stats and buying patterns. But not everything is perfect; the buzz around fintech has also attracted a number of entrepreneurs who are searching for that quick buck without focusing on solutions. Some tend to import or create products that are not fit for the locals, which is, the biggest mistakes in fintech. Fintech must be able to solve local problems and make things better, which is what Wallettec is doing”. 

If he is not travelling or working at Wallettec, Meyer spends time speaking to fintech entrepreneurs at different hubs and also as a conference speaker on mobile payments.