Mobile industry innovation stalwart and entrepreneur
Tracy Surkont has been named as MD of email, SMS and payments specialist TotalSend.
TotalSend recently added push payments to its product portfolio, enabling consumers to make easier and more efficient payments at the click of a button.
“By enabling merchants to push payment-enabled SMSs and emails to consumers, TotalSend removes the complexity by allowing payments for goods and services to be received much faster and without having to resort to that cumbersome staple of business life, the EFT,” says Surkont.
As a long-time entrepreneur, Surkont is attracted to new and better ways of doing things.
“TotalSend piqued my interest. SMS, email and chats with easy payment links embedded in the message is a brilliant way of collecting money,” she says.
Surkont is leading a well-established team from the company’s Cape Town headquarters that will focus on expanding TotalSend’s existing product set of email, SMS and payment solutions. She is eminently-suited to the role with WASP (wireless application service provider) industry experience built on a telco product development pedigree. Experience in IP messaging, social media consulting and mobile start-ups rounds off an impressive set of corporate and entrepreneurial credentials.
She explains: “Because our carrier-grade SMS platform offers global text message delivery with direct connectivity throughout Africa, an obvious focus area will be TotalSend’s rapid expansion into new territories. In addition, while we can already settle and acquire payments with all major banks, we’ll be looking at adding new payment options that speak to the mobile consumer’s increasing need for convenience.”
The company’s electronic communications and e-payments solutions are already finding growing favour within the banking, marketing, financial services and retail industries. Consumers, too, appreciate the simplicity of TotalSend’s push payments tool which enables them to click on a link and be directed to easy payment options. The manual process of adding merchants as EFT beneficiaries before payment can be completed is totally eliminated.