Within four years mobile point-of-sale terminals — devices that connect to a smartphone — will handle about 20% of the value of all retail transactions globally, says UK-based Juniper Research. Local versions are already in on that game. A company called iKhokha, which has developed its own payment device, has successfully rolled its product out to small business such as nail and hair salons, butchers, spaza shops and taverns. iKhokha MD Matt Putman, who co-founded the company with Ramsay Daly, says he had experienced the difficulty of trying to get a card machine from a bank. The idea of developing the iKhokha device came to him after he read an article in Forbes about Square, a US-based mobile payment company based in San Francisco. "We wanted to really build a business that could help small enterprises and drive digital financial inclusion for all small business across SA," says Putman. iKhokha, much like its rivals Yoco and Absa’s Pebble, securely converts any smartphone into a ...
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