Payments

Unionpay International selects BankservAfrica for South African card payments

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December 27, 2023

Unionpay International selected BankservAfrica, a payments clearing house in Africa, as its domestic processor for card payments in South Africa. BankservAfrica will act as a processor for Unionpay's card issuing and acquiring on its ATMs, point-of-sale and e-commerce payment channels, according to a press release.

"BankservAfrica has built a solid reputation as Africa's largest automated clearing house and the banking sector's trusted clearing partner," Asad Burney, head of Unionpay's international African branch, said in the release. "By joining forces with a mutual organization that shares Unionpay International Scheme's purpose of serving the best interests of communities, our offerings to the market, including our fees, are customized for the environment. Taking our approach of 'share growth', we can create an enabling marketplace that benefits all participants within the payments ecosystem including financial institutions, small businesses and retailers for the economy to thrive."

"We believe this first-of-its-kind partnership with Unionpay International is more than just domestic card processing, it's about building the synergies to enhance the capabilities and broaden the scale for card payments among the emerging and new markets. Inviting innovation that caters for these segments will address the persisting financial inclusion challenge," Stephen Linell, CEO at BankservAfrica, said in the release.