Visit that gave rise to e-payments firm

Eran Feinstein was invited to Kenya by a local airline to model an online payment and booking engine in 2006. He was however met by a myriad of challenges while trying to access online payment services for his purchases in Nairobi.

“Internet was not very good back then and that is when I saw a gap in the industry. People lacked a secure online payment to ease business transactions. I remember going back to Israel and telling my wife that I have decided to provide the solution in Kenya,” he said.

This gave rise to a business that nine years later boasts of presence in at least five countries in Africa. The Israeli national is the today the managing director of a payment processing services firm, 3G Direct Pay, which has presence in Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Zanzibar.

“3G Direct Pay is an online payments processor for e-commerce, providing services to hundreds of travel businesses in East and Southern Africa,” said Mr Feinstein, who holds a degree in computer science and an MBA in marketing.

3G Direct Pay was launched with Sh9.8 million ($100,000) capital and by December 2006, the first deal on the platform was made. “I was however not sure it would pick after this. So we first worked from Israel,” he recalls.

CLOUD-BASED PRODUCT
The company has since relocated its offices to Nairobi and it plans to set foot in more countries in Africa with its cloud-based product.
“Our platform has a real-time payments processing engine. There are many layers in this system, one of the layers is the gateway which can connect to the system any mode of payment (cards, mobile etc). We also have another layer which does the fraud prevention and secures the system,” he said, adding that the system can process thousands of deals every second.

It serves about 38 airlines, 600 hotels, 500 travel agents and many e-commerce shops in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zanzibar, Zambia and Malawi currently.

“We guarantee safety in terms of bank details and all the information provided during these payments,” he says.

The cost incurred by merchants varies but the average cost for the airlines stands at about Sh19,678 ($200). For hotels is around Sh35,420 ($360), while on e-commerce shops the average is Sh9,839 ($100).

In Kenya, the firm has employed 18 people. It also has representatives across Africa in development management and marketing roles bringing the total number of workers to 30.

COACH MERCHANTS
The firm also provides free seminars to merchants on its services.

Whenever a potential buyer encounters a product and the payments are made online, there is always anxiety that comes with keying in your bank details.

You do not know whether that information can be used to drain your account moments later. However, according to Mr Feinstein: “You need to check whether there is a lock sign on the URL. This signifies that the site is secure.” A Uniform Resource Locator is a reference to a resource on the Internet.

He also tells the buyers to check a firm’s physical address.

Mr Feinstein advises customers to always check the online platform they are interacting with to ensure that there is an option for cancellation or return of goods in case of anything.

Kenya has now come of age and according to Mr Feinstein, he has seen tremendous increase in subscriptions from merchants seeking online payment option.

“For me, East Africa is the place to be,” he adds.

3G Direct Pay was granted the Payment Card Industry (PCI 1) standard recently meaning it is secure and certified.

PCI is a set of requirements designed to ensure companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.

“They also check that we do not collect irrelevant information while processing the payments on our system,” he adds.

To get registered to 3G Direct Pay, a business only needs to send a message on its cloud–based platform and within two hours, the entity can start accepting online payments.