The story behind Yoco: how university friends closed the gap
Four university friends looked around and saw people being marginalised and left out of the economy. That’s when they started Yoco, which makes card payment systems available to small businesses
Until recently, if you were a small business in SA, it would typically take months before you could hope to begin accepting card payments. You’d have to provide a detailed trading history to one of the big banks, and be in an "accessible commercial area". Then you’d have to take out a 24-month contract, and guarantee a minimum volume.It’s just one of the many hundreds of tripwires for small business in SA. As it stands, it takes 43 days to start a business here. In Mauritius it takes less than a week.Now there’s a new company, called Yoco, which provides small business with a card payment system, delivered in two days.Consider this: 75% of adults have cards, including millions of social grant recipients who are paid with Mastercard prepaid cards, yet less than 10% of SA businesses can accept cards for payment.Yoco was started by four university friends, who felt they could address this problem. So Katlego Maphai, Bradley Wattrus, Carl Wazen and Lungisa Matshoba quit their jobs and ...
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