Overview
Why SurePay?
The sprouting shoots of electronic payment systems in Nigeria have begun to blossom, creating fresh stems of ecommerce. InterSwitch, eTranzact, MasterCard and Visa are the major proponents and their technologies are allowing the Nigerian economy move closer to a cashless society. As a result, it is now easy to do electronic funds transfers from home or even withdraw cash from ATMs using payment cards.
However, it has been difficult for businesses to sell online despite this because they have to build systems (accounting, invoicing etc.) separately to accommodate their business needs. The cost of integrating all four of the payment platforms is also a deterrent to many businesses because the cost/benefit ratio is low. In addition, there is hardly any business that has integrated all four of these payment platforms, meaning a segment of these card-carrying community is invariably left out, thus limiting their business potential.
Unifying the InterSwitch, eTranzact, MasterCard and Visa platform, SurePay has therefore come to remove these barriers providing an easy-to-integrate, inexpensive, efficient and secure solution. See Ten Reasons To Choose SurePay.
Types of Users
The three types of users in SurePay are Buyer, Merchant and Developer. You may register with one or more of these access rights. The privileges of each of these access rights are as shown below.
- Buyer
A buyer is a registered SurePay account holder. With this access type, the user is able to:
- Monitor the status of all transactions
- Credit their SurePay account
- Make payments from their online SurePay wallet at zero transaction charge
- Merchant
A merchant is a registered SurePay account holder that sells goods or services through their website and use SurePay to receive payments.
- Can create payment buttons which, when placed on their website, could be used by buyers to make payments
- Receive payment from customers with Interswitch, MasterCard, eTranzact and Visa cards.
- Receive payments from non-registered SurePay Buyers
- Pay zero transaction charge for payments between SurePay users
- Access to product shipping options
- Developer
Developers are certified SurePay integrators. They understand the technical workings of SurePay and are able to integrate it for Merchants who need their services. Merchants can also attend the SurePay training and certification program to become a developer.
How it works
When a merchant is integrated, they can register an unlimited number of products. To register a product, the merchant must choose the setup type (i.e. single payment, multiple payment, e-cheque payment and donation). The information required for setup includes but is not limited to the item name, price, payment button type and shipping preferences.
When a product or service is registered, a code is generated which has to be incorporated into the merchant’s website. Buyers then click on this button to initiate payment for the item. Once they click on the “Pay Now” or “Buy Now” button as the case may be, they are re-directed to SurePay from the merchant’s website. From SurePay they can then choose what payment platform (InterSwitch, eTranzact, MasterCard, Visa or online wallet) they wish to use. A summary of the items they wish to get is then presented to them. At this stage, if they wish to make corrections they can just click on the back button. If satisfied with the summary, the buyer can then click on the “Pay Now” button and the payment platform’s API loads up. They can key in their account details and click ‘Pay’ (as in the case of Interswitch) or ‘Authorise’ (as in the case of MasterCard) or ‘Ok’ (as in the case of VISA) or ‘Pay Now’ (as in the case of eTranzact and online wallet) to conclude the transaction. Once the buyer passes the summary page, they are no longer in the SurePay domain. SurePay just becomes a window to access the payment platform and therefore cannot record or have access to the account details submitted.
Security
As discussed in the section “How it works”, all subscribers enjoy the security of all the electronic payment platforms they use e.g. an Interswitch user will enjoy Interswitch’s security facilities, a MasterCard user will enjoy the security facilities of MasterCard etc. SurePay is just a window to these electronic payment platforms and so you enjoy their security features as if you were conducting your transaction on their website.