Accelerating Payment Processing Revolution.

Yoco is a fast-growing Cape Town-based financial technology company that provides mobile card payment devices to upwards of 120,000 small business owners across South Africa. With a mission to ‘target the underserved and the underbanked through economic inclusion’, its aim is to drive the country’s economy forward by helping entrepreneurs to be successful. Yoco’s card readers are designed for SME retailers who are too small to qualify for a payment device from the established banks. They make processing online payments simple and work anywhere – from a mall to a street corner.

There are around five million entrepreneurs in South Africa, and their need for straightforward, flexible payment solutions has never been met by the big established banks. In fact, 70% of the merchants Yoco serves today had never been able to accept card payments before.

Rapid transactions are key to small retailers’ profitability and depend on payment devices being ready to go at all times. The challenge Yoco faced was how to ensure continuous connectivity to the internet without adding complexity.

For instance, standard payment machines use SIM cards designed for consumer devices, that are tied to one mobile network. This meant that while Yoco’s standalone terminal might work well in one area of the country, it might struggle to connect in a more rural location or on the bottom floor of a mall. Some suppliers mitigate this problem by providing their customers with two SIMs for their card reader, so if one is not working, they can swap over to the other. But juggling multiple SIMs was not the answer.

Oftentimes mobile operators will drop connections to idle devices to maximise network use. This is a real challenge for businesses with POS devices. It means they must wait for the connection to re-establish when the device is turned on.

The answer to ensuring continuous connectivity without adding complexity or cost was to use Eseye’s multi-IMSI AnyNet+ SIM, which can be loaded with multiple network user profiles. This allows the device to switch dynamically to another network on any loss of connectivity.