The moment everything changed
R530,000 a month — going where?
Every month, we were watching R460,000 leave our account to Yoco. Another R70,000 to Loyverse for basic inventory software. R530,000 total — month after month. We were running a successful business, but an enormous slice of every sale was going to payment middlemen.
When we finally sat down and traced where the money was going, the answer was clear: we were paying Yoco's profit margin on top of the bank's actual rate. The 2.95% wasn't the cost of processing a card. It was the cost of processing a card through Yoco.
"The bank rate on a debit transaction isn't 2.95%. It's closer to 1%. The rest is Yoco's margin. We were paying for their infrastructure, their investors, and their growth — on every single sale we made."
The discovery
The direct bank model.
We dug into how payment processing actually works in South Africa. Payment Facilitators like Yoco and iKhokha operate by sub-licensing a bank's processing infrastructure and adding their own layer on top. They make money on the spread — the difference between what the bank charges and what they charge you.
The alternative — direct bank agreements — has existed forever, but it was traditionally only available to enterprises processing R10M+ per month. We decided to change that. Nexo negotiates direct processing agreements with South African banks. We pass those rates directly to our customers — with no Payfac spread on top.
Building the solution
More than just fees.
While we were solving the fee problem, we also noticed that most SA businesses were running a patchwork of disconnected tools: one system for the till, another for inventory, a spreadsheet for customers, a separate app for analytics. None of them talked to each other.
We built nexo to be the system that replaced all of them — not because we wanted to be another all-in-one platform, but because real business decisions require connected data. You can't make good inventory decisions without knowing which products drive the most margin.
Today & beyond
For those who business differently.
We're a South African company. We know what poor connectivity costs a business that can't process payments during a network outage. We know how thin retail margins are. We know the competitive pressure on SA hospitality. We built for those realities — not for a generic global market.
Our tagline isn't a marketing line. It's who we built nexo for: South African business owners who want more from their tools, who are tired of paying middlemen for the privilege of accepting money, and who believe software should work as hard as they do.