Halo Dot, the developers of a contactless card payment technology that allows merchants to make sales and accept payments directly on their mobile phones, and Ukheshe Technologies, a global embedded finance enabler, have entered a strategic partnership.

Through the agreement, Halo’s technology will be integrated into the Ukheshe Eclipse API platform to enhance its scalable, frictionless integrations, and payment solutions.

“Ukheshe is constantly innovating to provide relevant financial propositions to suit each market’s unique requirements. Tap on phone payment technology is a perfect fit especially at SME and micro merchant levels and it made sense to choose Halo Dot as our partner of choice in this segment of the market,” says Paul Selibas, president of channel engineering at Ukheshe Technologies.

Because Halo Dot complies with industry standard methodologies, it has been a smooth process to integrate it within the Ukheshe Eclipse API. Halo Dot is holistic in that it caters for all technical aspects related to tap on phone payments, significantly adding to the Ukheshe value proposition. As Halo Dot complies with industry standard methodologies, it provided Ukheshe with the support needed to ensure integration into Ukheshe’s API was completely seamless.

For Craig Leppan, head of business development at Halo Dot, the partnership between the two companies is a symbiotic one. “Together, Halo Dot and Ukheshe are connecting the world through payments. Our technology enables Ukheshe to introduce a new dynamic for customer payments and we now have an environment where we can take Halo Dot to a global audience.

“Essentially, this creates an ideal solution that addresses all the pain points in the mobile payment market and overcomes the reliance of micro merchants to accept card payments using expensive point-of-sale (PoS) terminals,” says Leppan.

Selibas says that Ukheshe has been attracting significant interest for the integrated offering with a full pipeline of customers wanting to implement the joint solution.

“The demand for tap on phone technology is huge and will only get bigger. We are taking Halo Dot and putting it in a white label environment which a customer can fully customise and implement their own tailored payment solution in a matter of weeks rather than months. Eclipse provides the building blocks required to enable customers to build great user experiences, using our developer-friendly infrastructure,” says Selibas.

Both companies are committed to the partnership and bringing the technology to new territories and markets globally.

“With PoS not readily available in the rest of Africa, this joint solution is ideal for merchants looking for a secure, flexible, and alternative way to manage micro transactions without worrying about cash or the difficulties of hardware devices that might not always be available where they operate from,” says Leppan.