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Zimbabwe software developers have tried to come up with a solution that will enable a flawless online payment system with local efforts from players like Paynow, Pay4app and Payments managing to make progress.
However the challenge has been the inability to make payments thorough the international gateway.

A few weeks ago I managed to speak to the brains behind PayNow, which is currently still on a soft launch.

Mr  Matthew Hood  and Mr  Vusi Ndebele the Sales and operations director with WebDev said they were so excited that they have moved in to find the solution that will not only work for Zimbabweans  to make payments online but also for merchants to receive payments directly into their bank accounts via PayNow.

PayNow is seeking to capitalise on the shortcomings of the international online payment service provider Pay Pal which recently added Zimbabwe to the 190 countries that it operates in.

PayPal has stated that their services will be only be availed to Zimbabweans who want to buy from the international markets while the local merchants will not be able to receive any payment via PayPal.

PayPal said “We think we can give our sellers selling into this market a great deal of reassurance.”

“PayPal does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers.

“It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services,” said Mr Rupert Keeley, the executive in charge of the EMEA region of PayPal

This affords PayNow and Pay4App with an opportunity to offer our local business the solution for real time online payments nationwide seamlessly, but these solutions still have their limitations.

However the advantage that comes with using PayPal is that Zimbabweans are allowed to buy or pay for almost any service online, as Zimbabwe is now linked to the global village. For the first time in history, we can now simply achieve daily tasks and here are top five tasks I have been enabled to do by PayPal

Activating your Whatsapp, instead of you being worried about downloading a new version every year or being worried about the expiry lasting forever, for only $1 via PayPal your worries are settled.

Legitimate Software some of the highly pirated software in the world in Nigeria and Zimbabwe may have been fuelled by lack of payment systems but now Paypal affords Zimbabweans an opportunity to buy really useful yet affordable legitimate software.

Google play or iTunes, are certainly the best places for most Zimbabweans and by design we were forced to only focus on the free category, but now even that cool app for99cents can now be simply redeemed.

Skype calls by all means remain the cheapest way to call any phone number locally or internationally via the Internet Protocol based system, buying Skype credit has finally become a reality.

Webhosting service – Zimbabwean can now set up their websites for not more that $7 while getting premium services.

While most people easily get confused by the difference between PayPal and our bank Master/Visa Cards, PayPal is only a gateway which will still require the use of those cards.

Unfortunately for most websites and service providers, they do not take payments directly from these cards but collect only via Pay Pal and other gateways.

For Zimbabweans, our bank cards were not recognised by PayPal meaning no matter how much you had in your account, Zimbabwean based bank accounts were not able to pay for anything online as the international gateways were not recognising us before.

The entry of PayPal into Zimbabwe comes as a major milestone, finally allowing every Zimbabwean the equal opportunity to make international purchases.

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