Business owners in South Africa in many different industries are making use of the internet to gain new clients worldwide. Due to the high number of tourists expected in South Africa this year, businesses in the tourism and travel industry including travel agencies, B&B and hotel operators are looking to maximize the number of bookings received via their online booking portals. Airline operators in Africa are also expecting an increase in the number of flights booked due to the influx of tourists. In many cases clients prefer to pay in their own currency. In order to facilitate this PayGate has developed PayFX, a currency conversion system that works with our PayWeb and PayBill payment services.

If a merchant wishes to accept credit card payments from their clients in currencies other than the currency supported by their internet merchant account, PayFX provides a user-friendly solution that is quick to implement with minimal development for the merchant. With PayFX activated, the merchant can send transactions to PayGate in any of the currencies supported by the service. When the transaction is received, the transaction amount is converted to the currency supported by the internet merchant account using a current exchange rate. The original transaction amount as well as the converted transaction amount and currency are displayed to the cardholder before the online credit card payment is processed via our credit card payment gateway to the merchant’s internet merchant account.

PayFX is recommended for merchants in South Africa who want to accept credit card payments from international credit cards via their website. As it is also compatible with PayBill - merchants will also be able to send bills via email to their overseas clients in their clients’ home currencies and thereby accept credit card payments into their internet merchant accounts in their own currency. PaySum1 – a revolutionary new payment method that allows merchants in South Africa to receive forex bank payments while saving on transaction fees – is also compatible with both PayWeb and PayBill and enables merchants to receive more payments from overseas clients.