Local payment service provider PayGate has partnered with Retail Capital to provide businesses with short-term working capital.<\/p>\n
The co-created Easy Advance<\/strong><\/a> will allow merchants to gear up to take advantage of the approaching Black Friday and festive season opportunities.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last few years we\u2019ve seen a shift in the nature of our customers,\u201d said Brendon Williamson, CSO at PayGate.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, our online merchants were mostly mid to large ecommerce-only outfits. Now we have brick-and-mortar companies who have added an online channel, as well as a healthy percentage of micro enterprises made up of entrepreneurs who are running start-up online businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest obstacles for a growing business is access to finance. We want to make sure our customers have the capital they need to really compete when it comes to the big sale days later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Easy Advance<\/strong><\/a> is pre-qualified funding that leverages a merchant\u2019s existing transactional information to craft a personalised finance solution suited to their specific requirements.<\/p>\n According to Business Unity South Africa, the SME sector employs 47% of South Africa\u2019s workforce and contributes more than 20% to the country\u2019s gross domestic product while paying around 6% of corporate taxes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe economic malaise is making it harder for start-ups to get funding from traditional lenders,\u201d said Karl Westvig, CEO at Retail Capital.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen providing funding to help business owners grow, we look at their track record and financials, not at their collateral.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are able to optimise their budget and resource strategies and overcome the other practical obstacles they are facing, allowing them to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n Westvig added that PayGate and Retail Capital understand the needs of entrepreneurs who need to move quickly to increase stock or launch an aggressive marketing campaign ahead of the upcoming big sale days.<\/p>\n \u201cWorking with PayGate, we can deliver the most flexible product possible, based on real-time trading data of the company seeking the finance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that our merchants are gearing up for the approaching year-end sale days,\u201d said Williamson.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, access to finance remains one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today.\u201d<\/p>\n Traditional finance has very strict criteria, said Williamson, some which simply can\u2019t be met by companies that have only been trading for a short period of time.<\/p>\n \u201cEasy Advance\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> criteria takes daily online transactions into account, enabling younger companies to scale up quickly with the security of two reputable institutions backing the product,\u201d said Williamson.<\/p>\n Payment terms can be taken over a one-, three- or six-month period, depending on the preference of the company, and can be deducted from the payments being processed over the PayGate gateway in a flexible repayment schedule.<\/p>\n PayGate has already started to offer Easy Advance<\/strong><\/a> to qualified merchants and will be regularly assessing their merchant\u2019s transactional data to provide them with funding offers that help them prep for the holiday sales to come.<\/p>\n\n
Easy Advance<\/h3>\n
Easier finance options<\/h3>\n