Name: Paystack
Price range: $

We’re excited to announce a partnership with Truecaller (one of the world’s largest mobile identity platforms) to allow more merchants across Africa accept payments online in a frictionless and secure manner by leveraging Truecaller’s mobile identity product, Truecaller SDK.

Paystack is leveraging the Truecaller SDK in two important ways:

to strengthen the identity verification of Paystack merchants
to provide a new phone number verification tool to Paystack merchants who want to confirm the mobile-based identity of their own customers

1. Verifying the identity of Paystack Starter Businesses

Paystack has just announced the launch of Paystack Starter Businesses, a merchant tier that allows businesses to start using Paystack without the need for a corporate bank account or company registration certificate.

Using the Truecaller SDK, Paystack is able to verify the identity of Starter Business merchants by verifying their phone number. This is in addition to proprietary risk checks that Paystack runs.

Starter Business merchants usually have a collections limit of 2 million Naira applied to their businesses, but merchants who opt into phone number verification via Truecaller enjoy an increase of the limit to 3 million Naira.

Learn more about Paystack Starter Businesses

Paystack has partnered with Truecaller to verify the identity of Paystack merchants, and make it possible for more merchants to accept payments online

How it works

Let’s use the Paystack Starter Business merchant verification as an example of the Truecaller SDK in action.

A prospective Starter Business merchant is attempting to activate his business on Paystack. He sees that he can verify his phone number with Truecaller.

He triggers the verification and sees an instruction to check his phone

When he checks his phone, he sees a prompt from Paystack to verify his Truecaller ID.

Clicking on the green button completes the verification.

2. Providing tools to Paystack merchants to do phone number verification of their customers

Paystack has always provided tools that allow developers and merchants to verify the identity of customers. Those verification options include:

BVN Verification: the ability to verify the Bank Verification Number (BVN) of customers (learn more)
Bank Account Verification: the ability to verify bank account details (learn more)
Resolve Card BIN: the ability to verify card details (learn more)

Paystack merchants such as Branch, Aella Credit, and Piggybank currently leverage these tools to power their business.

Thanks to the partnership with Truecaller, Paystack is now able to offer a fourth, brand new verification option - phone number verification - using the Truecaller SDK, that works for customers all over the world!

Merchants who integrate phone number verification are able to verify that their customers are who they say they are by confirming the following details:

phone number
customer name
customer email address
social media handles
customer company/organization

See Developer Documentation for Truecaller-powered phone number verification

A typical use case

Say you're a Paystack merchant who has a lending app, and you'd like to verify the identity of the people to whom you're giving loans. With phone number verification powered by the Truecaller SDK, you can give your customers the option to confirm that they are who they say they are by submitting their phone number.

When the customer initiates the phone number verification, they receive a prompt on their Truecaller app, asking if they accept the request to verify via Truecaller. Once the customer taps "Accept," the requisite information is passed on the merchant, who is then able to confirm the customer's identify against other submitted information.

Paystack has partnered with Truecaller to provide a tool that lets Paystack merchants verify the identity of their customers using only a phone number

Customer Data Privacy and Security

Both Paystack and Truecaller are obsessive about protecting the privacy and security of our users. The Truecaller SDK is a consent based service (just like Truecaller), which means that before any Truecaller user info is shared with a merchant, the Truecaller user must:

explicitly and proactively request for a phone number verification
receive a prompt via their Truecaller app asking if they agree to verify via Truecaller
explicitly click Accept on the prompt

In case the user changes their mind and no longer wants to verify, they can immediately reject the prompt.

Powering a vibrant online payment ecosystem

In our announcement about Paystack Starter Business, we mentioned that the mission of Paystack is to help businesses in Africa be profitable, envied, and loved.

Today, the way we do this is through a kickass payment gateway, but we have our eyes set on an entire suite of tools to help our merchants grow.

Those tools include verification APIs that allow our Paystack merchants verify the identity of their customers. In low-trust environments like Nigeria, such tools play an important role in powering a vibrant online payment ecosystem.

Over 50 million Africans use Truecaller. As Paystack gears up for a wave of expansion across the continent, we’re thrilled to have a partner like Truecaller enabling tools that increase trust, and helping support our vision of frictionless payments across Africa, powered by Paystack!