Payments company Yoco this month announced a major update to its business that goes far beyond electronic card payments for independent businesses.
It started as an electronic payments company for businesses that were losing sales because card payment devices were expensive, contracts were rigid and approval processes were slow.
Founded in 2015, Yoco has come a long way from its modest roots. In 2017 it had 10 000 merchants and processed 4.4 million transactions. Today it works with more than 200 000 merchants and last year processed 359 million transactions from 30 million consumers.
In June the company made its next big move, launching more than 20 new features, including an AI assistant, loyalty rewards, industry-specific tools, lower fees and backend assistants to run your business.
These tools do more than process payments. They are designed to give their customers what Yoco calls an “unfair advantage” in the market.
These are the kind of tools that make the difference between success and failure in business.
Yoco was launched in 2015 to solve a clear problem: many small businesses struggled to accept card payments reliably. Eleven years later, the company says its goal has broadened.
Independent businesses, which account for roughly 40% of South Africa’s economy, often operate with tools designed for larger companies and then scaled down. Yoco aims to build tools shaped specifically for their needs.
Carl Wazen, Yoco’s chief business officer, says the update gives smaller operators capabilities that were previously available mainly to bigger players.
“Yoco started by giving independent businesses access to payments. Today, we’re giving them tools that used to belong only to big business, at a price built for small business.”
Take the restaurant business, for example. Owners typically rely on monthly accountant reports and gut feel to know how well they are doing. Peak hours are chaotic, staff sometimes give untracked discounts and owners seldom know how well they have done until the end of the month.
Now they can track it in real time. A recent Yoco acquisition, Dyner.ai, gives some inkling of just how much profits are seeping through the restaurant floor.
Speaking at a Yoco media briefing in June, Dyner co-founder and qualified actuary Thalentha Ngobeni explained the reality of running a modern restaurant business.
“Restaurants involve thousands of moving parts, from stock to suppliers, staff, peak-hour pressure and customer experience. We studied this business intensively to understand what the problems were and came up with a solution that provides a real-time picture of everything that happens in the restaurant.”
Yoco AI monitors sales patterns across the days and weeks. It would pick up that chicken curry sells 40% more on Thursdays but the kitchen often runs out by 8pm. The system alerts the owner: “Based on this week’s trend, increase Thursday’s curry by 12 portions.”
The result is fewer lost sales and less waste (restaurants typically lose 4-8% of revenue to waste), which goes straight to the bottom line.
The waiter inputs orders into a terminal, which goes straight to the kitchen with less room for misunderstood orders. The bill is produced at the hit of a button, meaning checkout times are twice as fast. That clears the table for the next customer.
When it launched, Yoco didn’t try to be everything to every business. It concentrated on the specific needs of independent merchants – the spaza shops, restaurants, salons, retailers, and service businesses that make up about 40% of the SA economy.
These businesses often operate on thin margins, deal with cash flow volatility, and lack the time or resources for complex enterprise tools. By designing products around their daily realities rather than scaling down big-business software, Yoco built relevance and stickiness.
New features
Yoco has announced a suite of new feature designed to boost business success.
Yoco AI: Developed after the company’s acquisition of Dyner.ai, is an AI assistant that draws on a merchant’s own sales, cost, and staffing data. Merchants can ask plain-language questions and receive answers or actions, such as adding a new product to the catalogue or flagging unusual spending patterns. The system learns from the business over time and suggests next steps without requiring the owner to initiate every query.
Yoco Loyalty: Offers automatic rewards for customers on every card payment, without needing a separate app or punch card. When a customer pays, the system recognises the card, accrues points, and sends confirmation via WhatsApp. It is designed to strengthen repeat business, particularly for food and beverage merchants where data shows one in three customers return at least twice a month.
Industry modes: Tailoring the point-of-sale system to specific sectors. For food and beverage, there are separate modes for counter service and table service, including tableside ordering and real-time table management. Retail mode includes barcode scanning, real-time stock updates, and multi-location oversight. Beauty and services mode supports appointment booking, stylist tracking, and commission calculations.
Yoco Savings: Allows merchants to set up multiple pockets within their account for specific goals, such as value-added tax or equipment replacement. A percentage of daily earnings can be automatically allocated, earning an attractive return a year with no lock-in period and instant access.
Yoco Connect: Integrates accounting, e-commerce, inventory, and other tools into one place. The company reports that over 500 merchants already use its Xero integration alone. A developer hub and API tools allow third parties to build on the platform, with more than 50 applications currently in active use.
All this comes on top of a substantial reduction in fees that will return more than R250 million annually to merchants’ pockets.
The harsh realities
These are the harsh realities of operating an independent business in SA: 51% report that customers are spending less in 2026, and 46% feel less confident of business conditions.
“We’re building something more than a card machine,” said Brad Wattrus, co-founder and CFO at Yoco.
“We’re taking businesses from survive to thrive. We’re taking away the backend grind to allow entrepreneurs to enjoy what they do.”
With ingenious use of AI and sector-specific admin tools, Yoco says it has made being an entrepreneur rewarding again.
Brought to you by Yoco.
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