Welcome to another PayGate update and news related to our industry that may be of interest to you.

As a result of the exponential increase in South African online businesses trading internationally on the web and needing to advertise in foreign currencies, we have seen a big uptake of our PayFX online currency plug-in which allows them to do so and stay within the rules.  There has been a corresponding  increase in credit card fraud so most merchants these days are signing up for our very effective PayProtector fraud and risk screening service.  See below for more details on both of these products.  We see both of these services now as a non-negotiable for trading internationally on the web.

2010 World Cup Soccer credit card spend . .
With a massively successful 2010 World Cup Soccer reaching its highest point, we can all congratulate ourselves for the role we have played in it.  South African businesses have reported booming trade, including increased hotel bookings, car rentals and sales of 2010 FIFA World Cup memorabilia.  Visa Inc says that spending by foreigners using its credit cards has topped $128-million, up 54% compared with the same period last year.  Econometrix analyst Tony Twine says that the country should see continuing economic growth simply because of the global market exposure.   Internet merchants trading internationally can capitalise on this exposure with PayGate's PayWeb and PayBill combined with PayFX for advertising in foreign currencies.

Mobile Apps and banking . .
Particularly relevant to us in Africa where people accessing the internet via mobile way outnumbers those from a PC, mobile apps is the next big thing.  In April, before the site even reached its first birthday, more than 1 billion applications had been downloaded from Apple's iPhone App Store. That number has since doubled.  A small but growing percentage of those apps were developed by financial institutions.    The banking industry is beginning to recognize the importance of the mobile channel and the mobile application channel specifically.   PayGate's PayXML product enables merchants to accept payments on and for their mobile apps.

Navigating the Emerging Markets . .
We have the edge here in Africa as businesses and institutions in the mature and troubled first world economies look for ways to access and compete profitably in emerging markets. Businesses and banks in South Africa understand the African territory and are well positioned to capitalise economically and profitably in Africa.

Interchange . . .
New legislation in the USA has put pressure on the card associations and banks to reduce interchange fees.   Interchange is the fee that the acquiring bank pays the issuing bank when merchants accept cards using card networks such as Visa and MasterCard for purchases.   New financial regulatory changes will empower the Federal Reserve to set interchange fees that are “reasonable and proportional” to the cost of processing debit transactions.   The Nilson Report estimates that interchange fees increased from about $18 billion in 2000 to $47 billion in 2008.

For more news go to the next article . . .  "Latest eCommerce Industry News From PayGate Payment Gateway - Section 2" covering topics such as Facebook vs Google, Visa volume, MasterCard origins, eCommerce cardholders want pricing in their own currency, Increase in online fraud makes activation of PayProtector fraud screening essential . .