Establishing payment services that are appropriate for each country is a challenge for businesses looking to set up pan-African operations. Most of the payment services merchants working in the continent have solutions that are limited to specific regions, meaning that businesses have to sign deals with multiple providers to cater for the unique preferences of their users in different countries. Talk360 is looking to bridge the gap as it creates a new payment platform that will integrate all available payment options across Africa. Businesses will be able to use the largest pool of local payment options in Africa with this product.
The startup is looking to expand its international calling operations across Africa after closing a $4 million seed funding round.
Dean Hiine, co-founder and managing director of Africa for Talk360, said in an interview that he expects great growth for its payment platform, which will make it easy for international merchants to sell to users in Africa too. He said that the startup decided to build its own payment platform because of the need to make payment and checkout easy for its users in Africa.
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The startup works through integrations with older payment service providers, which are limited by region-specificity. Hiine believes his new platform will bring all thescattered payment methods across Africa on a common platform, which he believes will positively impact Talk360's bottom line and that of other merchants that will use its platform.
Talk360, a leading Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) player in Africa, enables people to make international calls through its app for a fee, and it is built in such a way that only the user needs the app and internet to make a call.
There are some unique problems with digital payment in Africa. The payment methods are scattered and the process is lengthy, which has a serious impact on the conversion rate we are seeing in Africa.
We are building the platform to increase our conversion rate by giving the user experience one single checkout, and to some level, offer predictive analysis, to tell the preferred methods of payment for that region and offer them as top options for the user.
As the startup begins ramping up its marketing efforts and expansion plans, it will be able to connect more people with the Talk360 calling app, which has paid users in 170 countries so far.
In 2016 the co-founding team of Hiine, Hans Osnabrugge, and Jorne Schamp created Talk360 as a traveling app to avoid roaming charges. The co-founders had to rethink their strategy after the introduction of internet calls.
The requirement for the person at the end of the call to have an internet connection was removed to accommodate the digitally-marginalized individuals.
Users can purchase airtime vouchers from a network of over 750,000 physical points of sale through Talk360's partnerships with agents.
South Africa, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are some of the countries where the calling app is used.
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