SOUTH AFRICA – South African fintech startup Paymenow has partnered with leading retailer Shoprite, to enable its 50,000 users purchase food and groceries from the store via its Paymenow app.

The Stellenbosch-based startup, was formed in 2019 as a salary advance payment platform with the aim of easing the burden inflicted by payday and micro lenders through affordable, real-time, access to cash.

The company has now expanded its offerings, giving employees who have signed up on the app, ability to fund a Shoprite Money Market Account.

This acts as a virtual wallet so that they can redeem their funds at any Shoprite, uSave or Checkers store as well as send grocery vouchers to family or friends anywhere across South Africa at the touch of a button.

“This is just another way in which Paymenow is looking to help our users stretch their money further and allow affordable, responsible access to necessity items,” Paymenow co-founder Deon Nobrega.

The app does not charge fees when employees cash out advances and lets users buy prepaid electricity and airtime from major network providers.

The company also offers financial education training for employees.

Following on from the success of its Shoprite partnership, Paymenow will be rolling out a similar offering to Pick n Pay and Boxer Superstores, which will allow Paymenow users to buy essential grocery items, airtime, data, and prepaid electricity from more than 700 stores nationwide.

In addition, the company is working on other value-added services to add to the app.

“With real inflation seemingly much higher than the official 3.2%, we want to help as many South Africans as possible stretch their rand when it comes to life’s necessities,” said Business Development head Bryan Habana.

Checkers Sixty60 now available in all SA provinces

“There are now more than 15 000 products available on the Sixty60 app with carefully curated ‘shopping missions’ to ensure a quick and convenient user experience.”

Shoprite

Meanwhile, Checkers Sixty60 is now available in all nine provinces in South Africa – after recently launching in Polokwane, Limpopo.

The on demand one-hour grocery delivery service has created more than 2 100 new jobs since it was first launched in late 2019.

In the past three months, Sixty60 has rolled-out to over 40 new areas, including Kimberley and Upington (in the Northern Cape), Klerksdorp (in the North West province) and most recently Polokwane (in Limpopo), making this award-winning service available from more than 130 Checkers supermarkets nationwide.

“There are now more than 15 000 products available on the Sixty60 app with carefully curated ‘shopping missions’ to ensure a quick and convenient user experience,” said Shoprite.

It has become the number one grocery shopping app in the country with over 1.4 million app downloads.

Checkers Sixty60 also launched another South African supermarket first earlier this year, when it introduced a recycling initiative for its popular brown paper bags.

Shoppers can now return their used paper bags to Checkers with the Sixty60 driver the next time they receive a delivery.

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