PayFort launches online payment gateway

UAE-based payment service provider PayFort has launched a payment gateway in the UAE and Egypt to facilitate online transactions in the Middle East. PayFort is a spin-off of CashU, an online payment provider based in Dubai, with investment backing from global online investment firms such as Naspers and Tiger Capital.

PayFort aims to establish consumer confidence by offering guaranteed transactional security by deploying a secure payment network that is built using the most sophisticated and up to date fraud prevention and anti-money laundering technologies. PayFort’s payment gateway can be integrated into a website or mobile app. The fees are based on the number of transactions made and the amount of intelligence that PayFort is required to provide to the merchant about each transaction.

“Our new online payment platform helps merchants really detect fraud on so many different levels. Most of the payment gateways available in the market have about 70 different business rules that help them in mitigating transaction risks. We have close to 20,000. The merchant can change the business rules for a transaction depending on the item being sold. Because of our risk management and fraud detection we can enable merchants to analyse what is happening at the time of the transaction,” explains Omar Soudodi, managing director of PayFort.

Saudi Arabia will see the next launch of the PayFort service, where SABB will be their partner. Initially, Saudi consumers will be able to pay with credit cards including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and JCB. Additionally, a ‘pay at home’ option will enable consumers to pay cash to the courier company handling the e-commerce shipment.

According to Soudodi, a lack of trust in electronic payment transactions has been discouraging both Saudi consumers and retailers from doing more business online. The retail sector in Saudi Arabia is the largest in the GCC, but e-commerce has been slow to take off in the country. Eventually, Soudodi hopes the Saudi banks will allow their customer’s debit cards to be used on PayFort.

Soudodi adds he would like to see governments across the region turning to PayFort to process online transactions. “Specifically in the government space, PayFort can provide Arab governments with solutions to their service/payment processing needs, helping them improve time to delivery of services while reducing the operational burden of the existing paper-based, physical service delivery model,” he concludes.