The new EasyPay smartphone app uses Masterpass, the global digital payment service from Mastercard, to allow South Africans to pay around 600 local bill issuers and buy prepaid utility services.
This announcement was made at the Mastercard Connecting Tomorrow Forum taking place in Barcelona.
Mastercard says the partnership is part of the company's strategy to displace cash and reduce friction in consumer payments.
"No one wakes up in the morning excited to make a payment or pay a bill. That's why we are working with partners like EasyPay to make everyday payments simpler and safer for consumers," says Mark Elliott, division president, Mastercard Southern Africa.
"The EasyPay Mobile app frees South Africans from the need to stand in a queue at a physical store or log-on to Internet banking to settle their accounts. Now they can pay for an extensive range of services and utilities from a single app, anywhere, anytime they want."
EasyPay processes 1.3 million monthly account payment transactions for over 40 traffic authorities, 80 municipalities and 460 bill issuers, including insurance and medical service companies.
It recently aggregated all these billers into a mobile app, enabling people to pay their municipal and electricity bills, traffic fines, television licences, DSTV accounts and a range of others. They can also buy prepaid electricity, water and gas.
To use the service, South Africans must download the EasyPay mobile app, from either the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and register for Masterpass.
Masterpass is the only payment option in the app, and users need to load details of their credit, cheque or debit card issued by any South African bank into the in-app digital wallet.
Mastercard says payment card information is captured only once, so users do not have the hassle of entering these details every time they want to make a payment.
To pay, users need to enter the unique EasyPay number printed on the bill they want to settle and then tap the Masterpass checkout button and enter their bank card's ATM PIN number to authorise payment. Their account will be updated immediately.
Besides payments, consumers can also save bills, access their payment history and search for outstanding traffic fines on the app.
"Consumers are rapidly embracing technology, and are looking for new ways to use it to simplify their lives. We launched the EasyPay Mobile app as a one-stop shop to make it as easy as possible for people to pay their bills with something that is already in their pockets: their smartphones," says Nanda Pillay, MD of Net1 Southern Africa.
Mastercard says Masterpass uses multiple layers of security to ensure the user's personal and payment details are protected.
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