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Banking on Facebook launched by leading South Africans Entrepreneurs

Local entrepreneurs set up free, secure online money exchange platform ZunguZ
Social network users now have the option to securely exchange money, cost-free, with fellow users thanks to ZunguZ, a multi-tiered platform that integrates key role players including social networks, financial service providers and banking institutions to facilitate micro-payments.

ZunguZ is the flagship product of ZunguZ Inc., a Delaware USA registered company with presence in the heart of Palo Alto, Silicon Valley and Cape Town, South Africa.

Following an extensive proof of concept evaluation, a closed beta was launched.  This initiative caught the attention of key global industry veterans from the heart of Palo Alto’s Silicon Valley through to those in New York and South Africa.   

The platform was recently released to the public in the form of a soft launch that allowed closed beta users to invite other users and is now in full release mode.

Multiple award winning technology entrepreneurs Robert Sussman and Lance Fanaroff have combined their expertise to spearhead the local entrenchment of ZunguZ.

As joint CEOs of the business, Sussman and Fanaroff have ensured compliance with beta testing regulation and have successfully introduced the first version of the platform (version 1.0) into the market.

They are excited about the potential that exists within the global market for this facility and are excited about how the offering is positioned

“ZunguZ is essentially a multi-tiered platform that has deep integration into the social graph and a host of financial services. The first tier is live and the viral distribution alone has been beyond our wildest dreams, with a flood of interest coming from Australia, Canada, China, Nigeria and USA,” says Sussman.

“While there are a host of diverse P2P, P2B, B2B payment systems in the market, even though ZunguZ is the first platform that allows a Facebook user to pay another Facebook user (with no requirement for a user to have a bank account or email address), ZunguZ does not compete with the likes of PayPal. It is the intelligence that exists in the level two and three layers where the core ZunguZ business model exists, allowing the referred distribution of purchases to your network. After all, people trust their ‘friends’,” he adds.

Management at ZunguZ acknowledge that security is of critical importance to users, particularly where financial transactions online is concerned. To this end proven security like Thawte certification, SSL, HTTPS and second factor authentication to name a few, are all prerequisites for integration with the platform.

As Sussman explains, the Facebook identity is considered a token of identification and, with this in place, the user is able to activate his or her profile with ZunguZ without leaving Facebook and is essentially given a Facebook bank account.

“Money can be exchanged between registered users without any banking information required.  ZunguZ and Facebook do not have access to the money.  This is all handled by the banks, together with their standard level of banking security, regulation and compliance.  ZunguZ is therefore not a bank, does not touch the money and there is no intention of it ever becoming a bank. We work with banks to bring their services to the social networks,” Sussman continues.

For the first few months, ZunguZ is working closely with leading financial institutions and service providers. However, this is just the first tier of what has been labelled as one of the hot Silicon Valley start-ups to hit the sweet spot of social and payments.  

According to Sussman ZunguZ has the potential to influence the purchasing decisions of over 850 million users across the world.

“While we gear for the release of the second tier of the platform, we are intercepting the ‘un-banked’ and ‘low banked’ population at the point of purchase. We have been overwhelmed with requests from some of the largest and most prominent banks in the world, to leverage our platform to deliver their services. We have locked the platform to withdrawls from within South African banks for now, but will open up to new countries as we conclude our selected partnership agreements This works really well for us, as ZunguZ is not bank, does not providing banking services and never touches the money,” says Sussman.

Management at ZunguZ believes the timing for a global, secure initiative that combines the banking fraternity with social networks – a trend identified by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people - and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time,” said Zuckerberg.

ZunguZ can be activated here www.facebookpayments.co.za




www.zunguz.com

 

This article was originally posted on Africa Banking Network

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