The Mahala Community Trading Platform is a single, secure payment platform for allconsumers who own a mobile phone. The Mahala solution consists of a mobile application that may be downloaded to the customer’s handset with correspondingpoint-of-sale software for retailers ande-merchants.
Mahala is targeted at both banked andunbanked consumers, is NFC-enabled andworks offline (when mobile network coverageis down). Mahala customers can use the platform bothat retail point-of-sale and online, as well asto pay bills and make peer-to-peer moneytransfers.
Mahala offers unique benefits toparticipants in every sector – including secure PIN authentication for card-issuers and theircustomers, and targeted advertising andinventory analytics for merchants. Mahala is safer, easier to use and less expensivethan any existing payment method.
As a free alternative to Visa, PayPal andMasterCard, Mahala allows zero-costinterchange between different paymentsystems and is therefore positioned as a globalpayment standard for the mobile phone era. Mahala means ‘free’ in South Africa.
