Extended load shedding is now commonplace and continues to play havoc with small business owners’ ability to trade, especially those businesses who haven’t been able to afford alternative power solutions.
“One way to assist our client’s power shortage woes, is to provide flexible and affordable funding for the purchase of alternative power supplies”, says adumo COO, Tom Morrison.
Clients who trade through the adumo payment devices have the opportunity to use ‘adumo’s retail capital’ service. Instead of taking out a bank loan, which is paid monthly at a fixed instalment, at a certain interest rate, customers can apply for funding from adumo, based on their monthly sales through their payment device.
Paying off the loan is based on merchant’s monthly card sales, which provides flexibility and affordability. “We believe this offering works in everyone’s favour as should the merchant receive higher monthly card sales, they will pay back more of their loan, without penalty, but if their cards sales are low, they are not contractually bound by an instalment they can’t afford that month”.
Payment devices are in themselves helpful when there is load shedding. Certain devices offer 8 hours of battery life and a back-lit screen, so merchants can continue to accept cards payments when there is no power.
All adumo payment devices offer multi-network redundancy, which actively seeks an optimal connection to cell phone towers, considering that some tower batteries may not sustain the power down time. In addition, many of the offered devices offer Wi-Fi as well as ethernet options to remove the reliance on cell phone towers.
Morrison notes that their clients are not sitting on their hands regarding the power crisis. “Through the applications received from our capital product, we are recording an increase in funding requests for alternative power solutions for their businesses. Self-provisioning of power will become the norm for business continuity in South Africa and with increasing interest rates, we are pleased to provide a funding solution that is affordable and flexible”.
