With rapid digitization of payments, a merchant's capacity to receive digital or online payments is important. Merchants who are unable to accept digital payments, may end up losing business & customers.

With governments globally pushing cashless transactions & with the Fintech revolution sweeping all markets, customers now have a plethora of options to make merchant payments, such as:

• Credit Cards
• Debit cards - (both Plastic & Virtual)
• Closed-loop / Gift cards
• Direct bank debit via Mobile or Internet banking
• Mobile wallets / Mobile money
• QR code
• Contactless payment and any other Online modes

Numerous payment options have led to chaos for merchants, as they are expected to not only keep multiple devices to accept transactions from all these methods, but also end up working with multiple payment providers for settlement for each of these methods.

Not accepting all methods of payments can lead to opportunity loss for merchants, which is detrimental to their business in these hyper-competitive times.

Estel’s Multi-Pay is a cutting-edge merchant payment solution that allows the merchant to not only accept digital cashless payments from all sources of customer funds (listed above), via a single App & Device, but also settle with just one payment provider, making their digital payments operations very simple!

Benefits of Estel Multi-Pay Solution

• Single device for all digital payments: Merchant does not need to keep multiple devices to accept payment from customers using various payment methods.
• Single window management & settlement: Merchants need to manage only one payment account. They receive settlement from only the one PSP/bank for all digital payment methods, and do not need to deal with multiple PSPs/Banks
• Lower acceptance costs: The Cost of Payment Acceptance (CoPA) is lower in Estel Multi-Pay because they do not need to maintain multiple devices.
• Assists in the spread of cashless economy: With Estel Multi-Pay Solution, acceptance of digital payments becomes very easy and this also motivates the cashless economy.
• Transparent and Convenient Operation: Payment Service Providers (PSPs) (via their Acquiring Bank) provide settlement service to merchants, by transfer to their account, after adjusting the merchant commission.
• Payment Service Providers (PSPs) may offer this service of Estel Merchant Payment Aggregator Solution to both, physical (offline) & online merchants.

Components of Estel’s Multi-Pay Solution

• Smartphone, Card-reader, and (optional) Printer: These components form the front end of the solution. The smartphone runs Estel’s Multi-Pay Software mobile application. A fully certified card-reader connected with the phone, reads the debit/credit cards and allows customers to authenticate their transaction by inserting their PIN on this secure & certified external card reader cum PIN-pad. A low-cost Bluetooth thermal printer, connected with the phone prints the receipts/statements. This component is optional since the solution can also deliver downloadable eReceipts via SMS or email.
• Estel Multi-Pay application: A smartphone application. This app is compatible with most smartphones in the market, enabling , a merchant to use his/her existing handset to install the Application. This smartphone client provides a frontend interface to the merchant and communicates with Estel’s Multi-Pay server.
• Merchant Portal (web & mobile): Provides merchant & device registration, activation, profile & merchant self-care options. It also provides online reports & access to real-time transactions & settlement data
• Estel Multi-Pay Software (Server-side): Estel’s Multi-Pay Solution is the software interface between Multi-Pay Applications, and multiple digital payment acquirers (banks, all card types, wallets)

Estel’s Multi-Pay solution uses card readers which are fully certified by EMV & PCI, and the solution itself is certified by MasterCard & Visa and is PA DSS compliant.

As a Multi-Pay Solution Provider, Estel is a well-known name in the industry. Apart from the Multi-Pay Solution, Estel also provides the following merchant payment solutions:

• Estel’s mPOS: A merchant payment solution that allows using a smartphone as a full-features POS device

Salient Features of Estel Multi-Pay Solution

• Estel’s Multi-Pay Solution module runs on top of Estel’s proven high-performance transaction engine capable of processing over 1000 Transactions per Second (TPS).
• With its vast integration experience with MFS entities (Banks and Mobile Money Operators), Estel is fully capable of connecting with any of the banks and PSPs.
• Multi-Pay Software Application is available for Android (iOS is coming soon). The application is compatible with most of the smartphones available on market.
• End-to-end PCI compliant: P2PE encrypted transactions from card reader to m-App to Estel Payment Gateway to Bank switch.
• Multiple Card types supported: Magnetic Stripe (MSR), EMV as well as Contactless cards.
• Simple & secure web-based merchant registration & activation process;
• Customizable receipts can be delivered on email, SMS, or printed via Bluetooth Printer (optional)
• Real-time management of transactions, refunds, and reports via Merchant m-App & Merchant Web & Mobile Portal
• Support for all card types: credit, debit, gift & prepaid; Open & Closed-loop.
• The solution is Card processor independent, mobile network independent, card reader/manufacturer-independent.

Use Case Scenarios

Problem: Mr. Ngala, a merchant in Zambia, had to turn away quite a few customers who wanted to make payments digitally. He was losing sales.

Though he was ready to adapt to digital payments, the problem was that there were many mobile money operators and banks, and to accept payment from all of them, he would need to open an account with all of them and purchase expensive payment devices from each of them.

As a small merchant, Mr. Ngala did not have enough means to invest in all these merchant payment instruments or time to manage all those accounts/devices.

Challenge:The market did not have any PSP-providing payment aggregation service, due to the complex technology the challenging integrations required to connect to multiple Mobile Money Operators and banks of Zambia. Such a solution or payment aggregation requires specialized knowledge and expertise in developing communication interfaces with industry-standard security.

But, with its vast experience in the MFS domain, Estel’s Multi-Pay solution was able to seamlessly communicate with all the Banks and PSP to allow NetOne (a Zambian PSP) to provide the country’s first payment aggregation service.

Benefit/Outcome: Mr. Ngala and many other merchants like him can now receive digital payments from customers using any digital payment means by working with a single PSP (NetOne). He needs to manage only one account with NetOne for settlements, and can use his own smartphone (with an inexpensive card reader) as a POS.