OLX Group, the Naspers arm that operates a network of online trading platforms in over 40 countries with over 300 million monthly users worldwide through consumer facing brands such as OLX, Avito, dubizzle, letgo, Stradia and Storia among others is set to launch Plutus, its global payments service.
According to Benjamin Schneider, Head of Payments Engineering at OLX, the firm is looking at solving its own payments problems in markets it operates where credit cards and there are lots of obstacles for businesses to accept payments.
“When we started thinking about the technology stack for Plutus, one thing we were certain about from the beginning was that we need a robust and battle-proven foundation. After all, no one likes to lose money and our customers trust us that we handle their financial data according to the highest standards,” he wrote in a blog post.
“Payments is tricky business. OLX does operate in many countries, in which credit cards are not a very common payment instrument. Instead we are looking at SMS payments, cash deposits at the nearest gas station or some very niche online payment methods, that most people have never heard of.” he wrote.
Given that huge complexity, we wanted to relieve every of our apps and websites from the burdens of implementing payments themselves, and rather encapsulate all of that inside an easy-to-use service.”
The platform, which will be independent of OLX apps, will enable business accept payments, offer refunds, automate bookkeeping to reduce losses and fraud. The service will also be integrated with card payments.
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