iKhokha wins 2016 Mastercard Innovation award

South African mobile commerce provider, iKhokha has won the Innovation Award at the Mastercard Innovation Forum which took place in Budapest, Hungry.

The Mastercard Innovation awards celebrate Mastercard partners who use their payment solutions to push for financial inclusion of all businesses, which iKhokha has done with their POS solution.

“We are honoured to receive this award from the Mastercard global Innovation Forum judging panel. It serves as great validation for the hard work that the iKhokha team has put into driving digital financial inclusion for SMEs in SA,” said iKhokha CEO, Matt Putman, in a press release to Ventureburn.

iKhokha is a Durban-based fintech startup with a low-cost payment solution to help merchants — especially those in rural areas — accept card payments.

Merchants are able to input a sale on their mobile device and the app will create a QU code. The consumer can then scan the code with their MasterPass app and complete the purchase.

iKhokha along with Mastercard are bringing 700 POS terminals to rural businesses

“Our goal is to continue to grow acceptance for card and digital payments and help SA’s one million SMEs access financial services across digital, mobile, physical and retail sales, and onboarding channels,” Putman concluded.

“This is a richly deserved accolade for extending Masterpass’ acceptance beyond online stores into the physical retail world in SA for the first time,” said Mastercard’s head of market development, Anton van der Merwe.

Featured image: Chris Eason via Flickr