This week, Amazon announced the launch of Amazon Payment Services to extend its financial offering into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It is effectively the new name of PAYFORT, which Amazon took over in 2017 as part of the Souq Group acquisition.
PAYFORT was established in 2013 as one of the first Fintech companies in the MENA region. Since its acquisition by Amazon three years ago its focus has shifted to integrating PAYFORT and Amazon’s facilities.
Omar Soudodi, Managing Director of Amazon Payment Services, said: “Today’s launch marks another key milestone in Amazon’s promise to build the future of digital payments in the region, empowering businesses to provide user-friendly payment experience for their end-users. We listened to businesses across a broad range of industries to continue improving our offering. Amazon Payment Services is a natural next step in our journey, focusing on four fundamental pillars of trust, convenience, selection and pricing, underpinned by a best-in-class experience focused on reliability, scale and operational excellence.”
Businesses that use the service will have access to the same features they had with PAYFORT. This includes the ability to accept online payments using both global and local methods, offer payment by installments, and monitor payment performance.
The new service processes transactions for businesses across multiple industries, ranging from aviation to travel and tourism, retail, insurance, real estate, governmental and more. Its customers include businesses of all sizes, from small and medium enterprises looking to establish their online presence to large-scale enterprises requiring a payment service that can handle high volumes of transactions safely.
Amazon Payment Services has a number of partners in the MENA region, which include RAKBANK, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Mashreq, The Saudi British Bank (SABB), Al Rajhi Bank, Riyad Bank, National Commercial Bank and Egyptian Banks Company. Some local card schemes such as MADA and Meeza, and international card schemes including Visa and MasterCard also work with the tech giant.
Tarek Raouf, Egyptian Banks Company Executive Chairman and CEO, said: “Our partnership with PAYFORT has extended for more than three years. And now, with the tremendous growth in Meeza’s customer base, we look forward to driving far more business impact through our partnership with Amazon. We are upbeat about the launch of Amazon Payment Services in Egypt, which we believe, will bring domestic online shopping into a new threshold.”
Amazon Payment Services has also introduced new and enhanced offerings to enhance customer service, including detailed reports with actionable insights and real-time monitoring of their payment activities. As part of the new set of services, businesses can get improved transaction authentication and reduce friction at checkout. Businesses can also build their own dashboard by merging their data from different sources which helps them track and meet their goals.
