South African online payments service provider Peach Payments launched its Smart Payments Platform, a new unified API to merchants that makes it easier for developers to work with the company.
Peach Payments was launched in 2012 by Andreas Demleitner, Shaun Campbell and Rahul Jain, and enables businesses to easily accept payments on their websites and mobile apps.
Jain told Disrupt Africa the company has until now had two different APIs – one for the front-end widget which the merchant integrates into its checkout page, and one for server-to-server integration and back-office operations such as performing refunds.
“Now we offer a unified API so developers don’t have to work with two APIs to get the full benefits of our platform and services. This unified REST API enables developers to do both the front-end/checkout page integration and the back-office operations,” he said.
“Our single unified REST API allows merchants to access the complete set of Peach Payments features and frontend widgets. No matter if you’re processing payments in browsers, server-to-server or on a smartphone, or even extracting reports; you’re always using the same API.”
Peach Payments participated in both Google Umbono and 88mph accelerators in Cape Town, and has some key investors on board. It is currently working with businesses in South Africa and Mauritius, while planning to add two more countries to the list in 2015.
“While there are a few local players who have been providing payments services for a number of years in African countries, there is no Stripe/Braintree-like provider in these markets,” Jain said.
“We decided to set up the Stripe/Braintree for Africa. We are a service focused on merchants but built for developers. We realised that there was a huge gap in the market in terms of the payments tools and services being offered to merchants and their developers and this problem could not be solved without adapting technology to processes on the ground and in the real-world. We work closely with our partner banks and operators to ensure that our solutions “work” elegantly and we abstract all the complexity for our customers.”
Peach Payments typically charges its merchants a fixed monthly fee and a fee per transaction. Jain said the startup has healthy revenues which are enabling it to invest more in expanding its services.
