PayGate and Retail Capital join forces to launch new short-term finance offering [Sponsored]

Local Payment Service Provider, PayGate has partnered with Retail Capital to provide businesses with short-term working capital.

The co-created Easy Advance will allow merchants to gear up to take advantage of the approaching Black Friday and Festive Season opportunities.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen a shift in the nature of our customers. Before, our online merchants were mostly mid to large ecommerce-only outfits.

“Now we have brick-and-mortar companies who have added an online channel, as well as a healthy percentage of micro enterprises made up of entrepreneurs who are running start-up online businesses,” explains Brendon Williamson, CSO at PayGate.

PayGate and Retail Capital’s Easy Advance will allow merchants to gear up to take advantage of Black Friday and Festive Season opportunities

“One of the biggest obstacles for a growing business is access to finance. We want to make sure our customers have the capital they need to really compete when it comes to the big sale days later this year.”

Easy Advance is pre-qualified funding that leverages a merchant’s existing transactional information to craft a personalised finance solution suited to their specific requirements.

According to Business Unity South Africa, the SME sector employs 47% of South Africa’s workforce and contributes more than 20% to the country’s gross domestic product and pays around 6% of corporate taxes.

“The economic malaise is making it harder for start-ups to get funding from traditional lenders.

“When providing funding to help business owners grow, we look at their track record and financials, not at their collateral. We are able to optimise their budget and resource strategies and overcome the other practical obstacles they are facing, allowing them to grow,” says Karl Westvig, CEO at Retail Capital.

“We understand the needs of entrepreneurs who need to move quickly to increase stock or launch an aggressive marketing campaign ahead of the big sale days. Working with PayGate we can deliver the most flexible product possible, based on real-time trading data of the company seeking the finance.”

“We know that our merchants are gearing up for the approaching year-end sale days. However, access to finance remains one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today. Traditional finance has very strict criteria, some which simply can’t be met by companies that have only been trading for a short period of time.

“Easy Advance’s criteria takes daily online transactions into account, enabling younger companies to scale up quickly with the security of two reputable institutions backing the product,” says Williamson.

Payment terms can be taken over a one, three or six-month period, depending on the preference of the company and can be deducted from the payments being processed over the PayGate gateway in a flexible repayment schedule.

PayGate has already started to offer Easy Advance to qualified merchants and will be regularly assessing their merchant’s transactional data to provide them with funding offers that help them prep for the holiday sales to come.

The product is now available for qualifying PayGate customers via the merchant portal where the criteria, terms and conditions, and application forms can be accessed.