Payment services provider, PayU South Africa, has experienced robust growth over the past 12 months. Since June last year, the company has quadrupled the number of transactions processed and has seen a 26% increase in total transaction volumes across their merchants.
With new management having had some time to settle in – both globally and locally – and a subsequent restructure, the women-lead, Naspers-owned pioneer of online payments is now leaner, with a renewed purpose.
Karen Nadasen was appointed CEO of PayU South Africa exactly a year ago, two months prior to the company restructure. “Our strong growth can be ascribed to the acquisition of large industry-leading merchants, as well as loyalty shown by our long-standing clients. Much of it also has to do with a renewed focus and a resultant subtle shift in strategy.”
Much of the recent success comes as a result of what Nadasen calls a ‘soft repositioning’. “It’s more a natural consequence of internal streamlining than a concerted external strategy,” explains Nadasen. “We are focusing more strategically on each of our customer segments. One of my first initiatives was to make enhancements to our platform to be able to service larger volumes for our medium to large clients. Our smaller merchants make up 9% and a key focus for us is to see them scale.”
Part of the current strategy is centered on enabling enterprise and global clients to successfully transition their sales strategies online. Until recently large brick and mortar clients have been measured in their embrace of eCommerce, though, this seems to be changing rapidly.
“Some of our merchants have been with us for a decade and we are now seeing them adopt multiple payment methods,” adds Nadasen.
Buoyed by the strength of traditional income streams, the company will continue its foray into the future of safe and secure online transacting. PayU’s positive view on Fintech, endorsed by recent billion Rand acquisitions abroad, anticipates the evolution of the payments industry into a more nebulous ecosystem. On the back of this, PayU South Africa has recently collaborated with leading South African Fintech companies and will continue to look for opportunities to innovate.
PayU now offers local clients a single integration point for merchants. Local companies can access a host of international markets and global merchants will have a seamless route into the South African market through the centralised resource.
“Having access to a central resource that contains intelligence across sixteen markets spanning the globe, has been a tremendous asset. The launch of the PayU Global Hub enables South African clients to access multiple markets and payment methods from one place.”
Nadasen and the management team will continue to guide the current transition from within. “We will continue to build a like-minded team to execute on our strategy, as team culture has been instrumental in moving the business in the right direction. Additionally, we will need to remain focused, as the industry is highly competitive and poised for major change,” concludes Nadasen.
