Vodacom Group has partnered with Alipay to allow South Africans to shop online, pay utility bills, listen to podcasts, play music, and send money to families from 2021. The app will also help small to medium enterprises (SME) access financial services such as lending and insurance.
According to the companies, the app will not only offer digital customer experience but will also bring to life a market place of goods and services to meet the needs of South African customers. This will be hinged on the digital payments ecosystem designed to serve both the banked and unbanked parts of the population.
Customers and merchants will all find each other on one affordable platform, operated by Vodacom Financial Services, with Alipay as the technology provider.
“This partnership is a significant milestone in promoting greater financial inclusion within the communities in which we operate, accelerating our financial services aspirations across Africa,” says Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO.
“This technology partnership with Alipay will enable us to be on par with leading global digital counterparts quicker and more efficiently. We see this as an excellent opportunity for us to reinvent the mobile fintech ecosystem for both consumers and merchants in South Africa and we look forward to achieving this by working with Alipay.”
Alipay is, owned and operated by the Ant Group, an innovative global technology provider. As of June 30, 2019, Alipay serves more than 1.2 billion users worldwide together with its global e-wallet partners.
Guoming Cheng, Head of Global Payment Partnerships at Ant Group, says, “Alipay seeks to work with like-minded partners around the world, to bring innovative and inclusive digital daily life services to consumers and small businesses globally. Vodacom Financial Services’ aim is to better serve customers and merchants in South Africa through digital technology, and we look forward to working with them to achieve this”.
