{"id":44634,"date":"2013-08-22T15:23:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T13:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44634"},"modified":"2013-08-22T15:25:17","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T13:25:17","slug":"absa-explains-mobile-payment-device-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/44634\/absa-explains-mobile-payment-device-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"Absa explains mobile payment device delay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Banking group,\u00a0Absa<\/a>\u00a0has moved to explain the delay of the launch of its mobile point-of-sale (POS) device, the\u00a0Payment Pebble, which it announced late last year.<\/p>\n

In November 2012, \u00a0the bank announced that it has entered into an agreement with\u00a0Thumbzup<\/a>\u00a0for its plug-in pebble device.<\/p>\n

The bank was due to launch the product\u00a0as a value-added service to all small business owners and merchants on-the-go from early 2013, however,\u00a0Willie van Zyl \u00a0head: commercial cards and card acquiring at\u00a0Absa, told BusinessTech that the group is awaiting paperwork completion with testing bodies.<\/p>\n

“We are very close,” van Zyl said of the expected launch date of the pebble. “We are absolutely\u00a0ready\u00a0to pilot,” he added.<\/p>\n

The card division lead said that because the product has been built in South Africa, for South African use, it needed to adapt to international \u00a0standards. “We have gone through every testing step, we’ve passed every test,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to van Zyl, the pilot phase would see more merchants added and would be concluded within a matter of weeks. He said he expected the pebble to be out in the market before the end of the year. “We are days away,” he said of the regulatory\u00a0process.<\/p>\n

According to Absa, the mobile payment system would also be used in its markes in Africa before being adopted by\u00a0Barclays\u00a0in Europe.<\/p>\n

\"Absa<\/a>

Absa Pebble<\/p><\/div>\n

Thumbzup, is a tech company founded by\u00a0tech startup entrepreneur and former Google SA GM,\u00a0Stafford Masie.<\/p>\n

Nedbank has already launched a\u00a0mobile point-of-sale solution in February, called PocketPOS, claiming a first for South Africa.<\/p>\n

The mobile POS solution enables businesses to process debit and credit card transactions by using a smartphone connected to a secure card reader.<\/p>\n

In October 2012, UK company Powa Technologies Group\u00a0signed a deal with FNB to offer its mobile payment device in the country.<\/p>\n

The device, mPowa, works by using a free mobile phone app and a reader, which connects to a smartphone or mobile device by plugging into its headphone socket or connecting via Bluetooth.<\/p>\n

FNB remains coy over a launch date, however. \u201cWe are in the final stages of certification and design and will soon be active with the product in the coming months,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

More on Absa<\/h3>\n

Absa intros mobile card payments for small business<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

FNB mobile payment device a step closer<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Nedbank launches mobile POS service<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Absa has moved to explain the delay of the launch of its mobile point-of-sale (POS) device, the Payment Pebble, which it announced in November last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[29,3300,76,26,1799,2389,6519,2270,4870],"class_list":["post-44634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-absa","tag-barclays","tag-fnb","tag-headline","tag-nedbank","tag-pos","tag-powa-technologies-group","tag-stafford-masie","tag-thumbzup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44637,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44634\/revisions\/44637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}