DEPOSITA SET TO LAUNCH THE NEW MERCHANT RANGE TO COMPLEMENT ITS RANGE OF CASH MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
“Deposita has grown to become the leading payment solutions provider in South Africa, with an ever-increasing global footprint. The business provides a range of solutions that enable clients to fulfil their aspirations,” says Deposita’s R&D and Product Enablement Director Peter van der Westhuizen.
Peter’s area of expertise focuses on understanding the South African cash, payments, and consumer environment intrinsically, while analysing global trends for continuous alignment in solution innovation. His innovative, out-of-the-box mindset drives him to create safe, secure, and user-friendly payment solutions for clients.
Below, he shares insights and solutions for better cash management systems as technology and demands keep shifting, discusses Deposita’s latest products, and offers his opinion on future trends.
How does Deposita categorise products?
Deposita boasts a full suite of products and applications that allows for full integration into banks and retailers:
1. Protector Range
The Protector Range refers to Deposita’s smart safes that range from 1 200 to 10 000-note capacity smart safes. With cash processed accurately and stored securely, staff will be free to provide better customer service and overall business efficiency.
2. Exchangor Range
This range comprises our recycling products, ranging from cashier lane solutions to bulk cash recycling solutions. In pursuit of more efficiency, staff need to be free from time-consuming cash handling. With easy-to-use cash recyclers, you can speed up checkouts, remove human error and track your cash flow.
3. Accelerator Range
This range features our in-house developed, self-service kiosk solutions. Online shopping is making e-payment and card payment the norm for every type of business. The range of self-service products and payment management systems are flexible enough for seamless integration into any business.
4. Connector Range
Your financial data is vulnerable in this digital age. You need to secure data, just as you would safeguard your cash. We created our secure financial software, Connector, to streamline and automate your cash flow management.
5. COMING SOON: Merchant Range
Deposita will soon launch its brand-new Merchant offering. This product will provide our clients with an end-to-end payment solution for all cash and card payment transactions.
What are you looking to learn or uncover through the research you conduct daily?
I start my day using one of the most valuable tools available to today’s executives – LinkedIn. This digital resource helps me to research payment articles and developments, providing an excellent overview of both local and global movements.
We look at how to use technology to ensure that our clients receive the best solutions. Our end goal is to ensure that clients remain relevant in the fast-changing industries they operate in.
It is essential to understand that research is not always about the new things, but improving the current as well. Deposita has a brilliant tech team. They evaluate and test new components to ensure that we continuously improve our offering.
How are devices or systems researched and developed?
When we source a product or solution based on client, market or segment requirements, our extensive technology team will perform detailed end-to-end testing on hardware and software applications. Moreover, testing will be formalised in a test report. Finally, the report is reviewed and approved by all applicable internal departments.
Based on the testing outcome, an effort analysis is completed to have the solution fully integrated into our stable. This includes back-end integration, sales, service, support, maintenance, and collateral. A team decision is made with regards to onboarding timelines.
The onboarding process is assigned to a project manager, while staff training and launch activities are planned to deliver a final commercialised product.
What do you consider when developing cash payment solutions for different markets?
The consideration here is twofold. In each case, consideration must be given to both the installation country as well as the installation sector. There are two focus areas worth mentioning:
End-to-end Solutions
- Fit-for-purpose solutions
- Installation and service requirements of the product (country and sector)
- Technical ability and requirements at point of installation
- Global reach of the solution
Direct Hardware Aspects
- Speed
- Capacity
- Cost
- Footprint size
- Operating systems
- Ability and requirement to host different payment instruments
- Access to information
- Application development
It is vital that we future-proof our payment solutions. By this I mean anticipating the future and developing ways to minimise the effects of stresses around future events.
In which countries is Deposita currently active? How do they differ and what makes them relevant?
Deposita currently has active devices in 25 countries across the globe with 22 full bank integrations completed. When entering a new country, it is important to understand the driving forces behind the payment landscape. This includes knowing what specific requirements are critical for the applicable country and its consumers.
One must remain agile with hardware and software application development. In addition, the focus should always be on adding value wherever possible.
What do you believe makes Deposita superior to competitors?
People
Deposita has a culture of caring and making our clients the centre of our world. We build lasting relationships and our clients become our partners in our journey of making them do more with what’s theirs.
Process
Strict adherence to policies and protocols are paramount. No new development or changes are executed without a detailed scoping, developing, testing and sign-off cycle. This helps to ensure that only market-ready products are commercialised.
Expertise
We draw from our local and global experience across 25 countries and, combined with the knowledgeable team within Deposita, deliver best of breed solutions.
Technology
Whether we’d like to admit it or not, any product can be improved. Deposita, by means of its exceptionally skilled tech team, evaluates all incidents and client calls. Consequently, we determine if improvements can be made to products, looking at how the customer experience can be enhanced.
Research and innovation
Not a year goes by where Deposita does not add a market-necessitated product or solution to our stable of products.
Apart from product, does Deposita lead the cash payments industry in other ways?
Deposita is a key member of the cash payments industry. We participate in all industry initiatives, which allows the business to carry key messages back to the industry – based on experience through our footprint and estate.
The business is an approved System Operator as certified by PASA (Payment Association of South Africa). Deposita is certified as both ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013-compliant with annual audits ensuring alignment to global standards.
Which devices or products are you particularly invested in?
The ongoing COVID pandemic has fast-tracked the need for specific solutions within the payment landscape. Consequently, this entailed the request for more self-service cash solutions, limiting the physical touching of cash as well as the move to more electronic payment options like Merchant solutions.
This is in contrast with a recent South African Reserve Bank study which showed that cash in circulation grew by 8.23% between March 2020 and March 2021 – still reflecting consumers’ urge to revert to cash during times of uncertainty.
Based on current trends and indications of future landscapes, I see self-service recycling solutions, bulk back-office cash recycling, and Merchant solutions as the new wave of required solutions.
What do you think the future of the payments industry looks like?
The cash and payments industry will gravitate towards three main areas: payment and banking self-service, cashless payment solutions, and inclusion.
In 2014, the World Bank set a goal that all adults will have access to a transaction account to store money, send and receive payments. By 2017, only 69% of the global adult population had a bank account or wallet.
A recent study conducted by PWC projects predicts that cashless transaction volumes will grow to nearly double the 2020 volumes by 2030.
Here are some of the trends that we believe will take centre stage in the years to come:
- Merchant solutions and the accompanying move to increase the use of SoftPOS, eliminating the need for POS hardware and using mobile phone or similar applications for payments.
- Digital wallets, which, according to a report from FIS, could present half of all e-commerce transactions by 2024.
- In Africa, closed-loop systems such as e-money and mobile money solutions will continue to grow.
- We will see more large bulk cash recycling solutions facilitating self-service applications.
- Retail and wholesale client self-service solutions, including cash and merchant options, will continue to grow.
To learn more about Deposita and how our end-to-end cash management solutions can help your business, please get in touch to book a free consultation.
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