In 2007 Eric Muthama, 35, an entrepreneur and Tony Francis, 49, a former banker began on a journey to solve a problem they say hindered merchants in Kenya from receiving payments online. The two came up with PayAfric, a money transfer system that lets users transfer money using their emails.
PayAfric customers can purchase digital credits to spend them on different users’ sites. They can also send money to other users, pay for auctions, or purchase any other products using their email addresses.
Speaking to HumanIPO, Muthama said Payafric is a two-month old, simpler and more convenient international money transfer service that allows users to receive money from anywhere in the world straight to their email or NationHela.
“It is a system in which you need to load money first in order to use and therefore keeps you in total control of what you spend. Just like carrying cash in your pocket, you only spend what you have, but in a safer and more convenient way,” he said.
He said: “You can also top up your account in Kenya at any NationHela agent location or through M-PESA. International you load Payafric using the above mentioned payment gateways.”
The service is registered in Kenya and is Visa-compatible.
According to the founders, PayAfric users can deposit or withdraw money using other payments gateways like Liberty reserve, Webmoney, E-gold, Perfect money, Pecunix, V-money, C-gold, Moneybookers, Strict pay, SolidTrustPay, PayPal, CashU, offline credit/debit cards and online debit/credit cards (world money), Liqpay, Ukash, Paysafecard, Western Union, MoneyGram and Payza.
Muthama says withdrawal of funds from PayPal is unsupported in some African countries and online payments from selling goods and services on websites are hindered.
“Therefore we want Merchants in Africa and everyone to get paid or pay for their online purchasers with ease,” he said.
Muthama hopes to integrate all supermarkets in Africa online to enable people to shop from their homes or office and eventually opening another avenue for home delivery business for others.
Pay afric is completely secure, he stated.
“Our system is based on the power of PHP and MySQL with encryption techniques installed on the authorization modules of the site for complete security of the funds of the users. The extensive admin panel offers an absolute control over the whole website and provides the administrators with complete stats of the activity of the site,” Muthama said.
According to Muthama, PayAfric does not charge a fee for customer-to-customer account transfers but makes its profit on e-currency exchange.
He sees the new service battling it out with MPesa, Western Union, Barclays’ Pingit Mobile App, PayPal and PesaPal.
