Payment24 News
Cape Town, 05 Jun 2015
Only months after bringing its revolutionary fleet management modules to market, Cape Town-based Payment24 is seeing keen interest in the solution, both in South Africa and abroad.
Payment24’s retail and commercial platforms, Payment24, harness contactless technologies, and mobile and cloud solutions to deliver unprecedented low-cost, real-time fuel management for fleet owners and fuel companies.
The solution is the first in the sector to allow real-time cloud-based management even on mobile devices, multiple layers of identification, and flexible limit management, combined with a comprehensive analytics dashboard for overall fuel, vehicle, and driver monitoring.
The Payment24 fleet management solution that launched in the middle of 2014, is gaining a great deal of traction in the market, says Shadab Rahil, Joint CEO of Payment24. “It’s quite revolutionary in this space, so we have signed up customers in South Africa and Botswana, and are seeing strong interest from other African and European countries.”
Not only does the Payment24 fleet management solution compete with traditional automatic vehicle identification (AVI) solutions, but it can also be used to complement AVI solutions for significantly enhanced control. And because of its low price, it lowers the barrier to entry to fleet owners who in the past might not have used a fleet management tool due to its high cost.
Rahil says some of the biggest challenges facing transport companies and fleet owners with regard to fuel management are fraud and the cost of time off the road. “Fraudulent transactions cost the industry huge sums of money every year.”
Payment24 fleet management uses either a fleet card or smartphone or features phone-based driver identification combined with a tamper-proof contactless tag on the inside of the vehicle’s windscreen. At the forecourt, both the driver and the vehicle are identified and this data is fed in real-time to the management system, which allows for the immediate detection of fraudulent or blocked transactions.
“Ours is the only solution that can tie down the driver and the vehicle to a single transaction in real-time, with immediate alerts issued per transaction,” says Rahil.
Using a handheld mobile banking-type terminal, attendants tap the windshield, then the driver enters a pin or swipes a card, and only when this is concluded will the pump be released. In addition, the management system allows for a number of rules to be set relating to fuel limits by vehicle, driver, area or time.
Unlike traditional and costly AVI sensors used in nozzles and fuel tanks, the windscreen tags cost only R15 – R30 each, are unlikely to break, and can be quickly replaced without the vehicle having to be sent into a workshop. From the retailer’s perspective, no costly sensor ring is installed on the nozzles, and only an easy-to-use mobile terminal is needed.
The challenge of authorizations is also reduced.
“The management dashboard is cloud-based and accessible via mobile devices, allowing management to make authorizations and track patterns immediately, wherever they are. This capability is unique to the Payment24 fleet management system, and enables significantly enhanced control and visibility,” says Rahil.
