• Ukheshe has acquired the Masterpass technology and has rebranded it to Scan to Pay, Powered by Ukheshe.
• Neither merchants nor users have to do anything as the rebrand is largely visual in nature.
• The firm did talk of the potential to add rapid payments to its platform in future which is rather exciting.

Nearly a decade ago, MasterCard teamed up with Standard Bank to launch a contactless payment solution called Masterpass.

The solution allows folks to scan a QR code to make a payment and since launching in 2014, this sort of payment solution has only grown in popularity. By January of this year, FNB reported that over half of all card transactions were contactless.

In 2019 Ukheshe partnered with Mastercard to enable greater penetration of contactless payments and the fintech firm has been growing QR code payments ever since.

Today Masterpass is changing and it’s not just a rebrand. The solution will now go by Scan to Pay Powered by Ukheshe as the fintech firm has seemingly acquired the platform from Mastercard.

“Ukheshe acquired the South African Masterpass technology from Mastercard, along with the technology comes the Scan to Pay brand. Scan to Pay Powered by Ukheshe will continue to provide seamless instant payment technology that adds to the ever evolving cashless commerce and digital payments landscape,” reads an FAQ answer on the Scan to Pay website.

Despite the move, merchants and users won’t have to do anything as the rebrand is mostly cosmetic given the change of ownership. That having been said, physical things like checkout branding will need to be updated to match new look.

“Our focus is on empowering a simple, secure and convenient payment method across all channels and devices. Whether an acquiring bank, issuer, PSP or direct consumer, no new technical integration changes will be required, as the evolution is purely a branding transformation,” president of project engineering at Ukheshe, Paul Selibas assured customers.

As part of this announcement, there was mention of the potential for the Rapid Payment Programme (RPP) to be integrate.

“We are also excited about the potential integration of RPP as a payment system that enables real-time fund transfers between individuals or businesses from their bank accounts. RPP systems are designed to operate 24/7 and process payments within seconds, making them a fast and convenient way to send and receive money,” Selibas said in a statement.

Locally, RPP is led by PayShap a solution championed by BankservAfrica. This solution allows for instant payments of up to R3 000 between participating banks using an account number or a cellphone number.

Participating banks currently include Standard Bank, Absa, FNB and Nedbank.

Should Scan to Pay implement this functionality, it would be a rather attractive payment solution for locals both banked and unbanked.