PayGate Review

INTRODUCTION TO PAYGATE

PayGate is South Africa’s fully managed solution for businesses to accept payments online, making it the ideal control system for a merchant’s store, restaurant, or bar, and even for the customer. PayGate offers all the benefits of South Africa’s most powerful payment gateway without any admin from the business owner’s side.

PayGate is an integral part of the DPO Group, a company that currently works with more than 100 000 merchants across 19 countries.

The DPO Group is well known for enabling businesses and individuals across the continent to accept payments online with all currencies as well as payment methods, including all major cards, mobile money, and e-wallets.

DPO Group holds PCI DSS Level 1 certification and since its foundation in 2006, it has grown to be a pan-African payment service provider with more than 250 employees across the continent.

As the local entity of the DPO Group, DPO South Africa is the best choice for businesses in South Africa to accept payments online. Through the PayGate and PayFast payment solutions, the group enables industries and businesses of all sizes to accept credit cards, mobile payments, and all other major payment methods, making it easier for everybody to get paid online.

DPO and PayGate understand the needs of their clients and strive to always deliver effective payment services that can reduce complex problems and replace them with simple solutions. This feature contributes to their success as a market leader within a continuously evolving payments environment. Their clients can be certain that they will get the competitive edge they need in their businesses because PayGate is reliable and consistent in its service delivery.

PayGate and DPO’s business depends on long-term, trusted, and mutually beneficial relationships. At DPO South Africa only the best-equipped staff members are hired to be able to deliver the best services. The team consists of the most passionate specialists within the digital world.

The group further believes that true intelligence finds its form in utter simplicity, which is why they serve and work together with their clients to map out secure, effective, and tailored payment solutions that optimize each client’s business growth.

The company is supported by secure state-of-the-art payment systems, used to help a client and their business to get the best from the service.

With this fully managed payment solution, South Africa’s largest payment enabler, DPO South Africa, has given small and medium companies the same power and access to services as large enterprise players. PayGate Plus is the first service of its kind in Africa and is expected to set and lead the trend in online payment standards across the continent for the foreseeable future.

PayGate Plus is fundamentally a hybrid model of the collecting, switching and ISO models that have been offered globally. With PayGate Plus, organizations of all sizes can access the benefits of merchant bank accounts, all available digital, and card payment methods, as well as the type of business management services that, until now, have been paid-for services even for enterprise clients.

The service comes at an appropriate time as it allows anyone who is offering essential services to quickly accept online payments. It is also perfect for other businesses looking to further transform their offerings digitally in a post-lockdown future.

According to the developers, the aggregation has always worked well for start-up digital traders because it allows a fast and easy sign-up and setup. Companies looking to enjoy the same benefits as merchant accounts would have had to comply with the much lengthier regulatory and lending requirements of a typical bank application.

With PayGate clients have all the benefits of a banking merchant facility without the wait that is associated with it. In the meantime, the banks still benefit because they still enjoy client acquisition, but DPO SA takes the compliance administrative burden away from them. In this way, the PayGate solution fulfills both the client’s and the bank’s business objectives.

The PayGate Plus solution settles the merchant as quickly or, in some cases, even more quickly than the banks used to do. The PayGate solution will also take care of any online business admin from transaction reconciliation to chargeback management with an improved system that also prevents and manages possible fraud.

The merchant does not need to think about or manage anything, he is covered from the beginning to the end of a transaction, meaning he can be anywhere in the world and manage his business from his phone.

PayGate Plus allows for payment across credit and debit cards, Masterpass, Zapper, Snapscan, Mobicred, PayPal as well as SiD Secure EFT and other methods. Merchants using PayGate Plus also have access to card tokenization, recurring invoicing, and recurring payment services at no extra cost.

The PayGate solution will continue to mature with more offerings to be added over time, including a fully digital KYC compliance check that will be released soon.

The PayGate Plus merchant will never again have to worry about caps on their transactions and they can stay on the PayGate Plus platform throughout their whole life, whereas previously, aggregator merchants were forced to move to merchant accounts once their turnover reached R1.6m per annum.

The PayGate solution will without doubt be the best and only product a merchant should require for any business. What is more, PayGate Plus merchants only ever must open one account and PayGate Plus will help them grow from start-up to enterprise.

Who Uses PayGate?

PayGate is ideal for owners of shops, owners of restaurants, owners of bars, owners of pubs, owners of anything that has tables or products on view, and owners of an online store or a physical store.

Through its PayGate and PayFast payment solutions, the group allows businesses of various sizes and industries to accept credit cards, mobile payments, and all major payment methods, making it easier for them to get paid online. Operating on a client-centric basis, the company works to deliver effective payment services that can simplify complex problems.

The PayGate team consists of experienced industry participants within the digital world, and who can deliver simple yet intelligent solutions for a range of customers.

New merchants that sign up with PayGate are provided access to a variety of payment methods through a single integration, and the company works closely with its global partners to ensure a streamlined payment process.

HISTORY AND HEADQUARTERS OF PAYGATE

The DPO group was founded in 2006, it has since grown to be a prominent African payment service provider with a few hundred employees across the continent. It has acquired PayGate in 2016 and PayFast in 2019, now parenting these two prominent South African payment service providers.

The DPO Group has offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa.

FEATURES OF PAYGATE

The following features are essential when choosing a payment gateway like PayGate:

• The provider must support the range of card and transaction types you require and hold all the necessary certifications and accreditations. With new types of cards continually being introduced, your PSP must be able to handle these efficiently and has the proof to back it up with the right bank or card scheme certificates in place.
• The provider must have a track record of delivering an exceptionally reliable payment processing service.
• The provider must be independent of acquirers, international card schemes, and technology vendors. The benefits of deciding what you want, mean you are not tied to rigid, fixed-term contracts.
• The provider must understand your market sector and has appropriate alliance partnerships in place. It helps if the PSP is already working with an application partner with the expertise of your market sector.
• The provider must offer a comprehensive range of services, competitive commercial terms, and flexible contractual models.
• The provider needs to take security very seriously especially with the industry requirement to comply with strict PCI DSS standards.
• The provider must provide Omni-channel transaction processing capability including support for e-Commerce, Smartphones, and tablets.
• The providers must deliver fast authorization response times even at extremely high transaction volumes.
• The provider must provide highly responsive account management and support services backed up by a willingness to offer client references.
• The provider must offer secure client applications for each sales channel that are easy to integrate into the rest of the business.

PAYMENT METHODS ACCEPTED

When a merchant signs up with PayGate he gets access to a variety of payment methods through a single integration. These methods include:

Card payments worldwide.

• Instant EFT payments from customers using the SiD Secure EFT service.
• Receive international payments using PayPal.
• Mobicred, a simple and convenient credit facility that allows you to safely shop online.
• SnapScan with which shoppers scan to pay for goods or services purchased on your website.
• Zapper – Pay using a smartphone. Customers scan the QR code on their bill with the Zapper app to pay instantly.
• MasterPass by MasterCard, a digital wallet service that makes online shopping safe, easy, and convenient.
• MoMoPay, with which customers store money on their mobile wallet and use it to pay for goods or services purchased on a website.

SAFETY OF PAYGATE

DPO Group holds PCI DSS Level 1 certification.

Fraud and risk are effectively handled by PayGate. It has developed PayProtector – a proprietary Risk Management Engine with three versions available:

• PayProtector – Light, which scans all incoming transactions and blocks fraudulent ones before they are sent to the bank for processing.
• PayProtector – Advanced, which generates a report showing the risk scores of all successful transactions from a previous day so that you can investigate any High-Risk transactions before you dispatch any orders.
• PayProtector – Managed, which is suitable for large organizations that require a comprehensive risk analysis service.

PROS AND CONS OF PAYGATE

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

If a merchant has any questions regarding PayGate integration, he can contact the provider during office hours and speak to a customer service agent who is trained to assist. Alternatively, you can send an email.

SUMMARY

Founded in 2006, PayGate as part of the DPO financial services group has since grown to be a pan-African payment services provider with more than 250 employees across the African continent. It has made a series of strategic acquisitions that includes that of PayGate in 2016 and PayFast in 2019 – both counting among South Africa’s most prominent PSPs.

Through its PayGate payment solution, the group allows businesses of many sizes and industries to accept credit cards, mobile payments, and all major payment methods, making it more convenient for them to get paid online. The company operates on a client-centric basis and works to deliver effective payment services that strive to simplify otherwise complex processes.

The PayGate team consists of experienced industry participants within the digital world, all able to deliver intelligent yet simple solutions for a variety of customers. The PayGate team assists its clients in mapping out secure, effective, and tailored payment solutions to optimize their business growth.

New merchants that sign up with PayGate are getting access to a range of payment methods through one single integration, and the company cooperates closely with all global partners to ensure an all-over streamlined payment process.

FAQ

What features must be considered when evaluating a payment gateway for your needs?

• Security
• Easy integration
• Detailed reporting
• Good invoicing options
• Multiple payment options
• Fast processing speed

What is a payment service provider?

Payment service providers connect merchants, consumers, card brand networks, and financial institutions to deliver a simple payment experience for merchants and their customers by processing payments quickly and efficiently.

What is PayGate?

PayGate is an integral part of the DPO Group offering a fully managed payment service solution for businesses to accept payments online.

Is PayGate secure?

Yes, PayGate is secure with PCI DSS Level 1 certification and provides PayProtector – a proprietary Risk Management Engine to merchants.

Can I Accept International Payments with PayGate?

Yes, you can accept payments from American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard, and Visa cards issued anywhere in the world.

Can PayGate Process Mobile Transactions?

Yes, the product is ideally suited to mobile app payments.

Can I use PayGate to process recurring transactions?

Yes, the PaySubs and PayBatch products have been designed for recurring transactions.