Ozow announces its evolution into an end-to-end payments and infrastructure partner. At its inaugural Evolve event, Ozow announced its evolution from a Pay by Bank provider into an end-to-end payments and financial infrastructure partner. The company is bringing together multiple payment rails, fraud prevention, data and AI-led capabilities through a single platform, with a number of these initiatives already live. As payments become increasingly interconnected and complex, businesses need more than individual ways to pay. They need infrastructure that brings together the technology and intelligence required to support how they operate, serve their customers and grow. The company built its name on Pay by Bank payments. As a full payment service provider, it operates multiple major payment rails through one orchestrated platform, unified behind a single application programming interface (API), alongside fraud prevention, data and AI-led products. Ozow has been a leader in account-to-account payments in South Africa, first to market with PayShap Request integration and a range of supporting bank APIs. That leadership hasn't come from working alone: Recent partnerships include Lula, bringing SME funding of up to R5 million into the Ozow Merchant Portal; HappyPay, bringing buy now, pay later into Ozow's merchant network; and FNB and RMB, on the FNB/RMB Payment Request. "We solve the problems and implement complex solutioning that results in an exceptionally simple customer experience," says Rachel Cowan (pictured), interim CEO of Ozow. "We began with a very focused proposition in Pay by Bank. Today, our role has grown beyond payments: As an infrastructure partner, we take on more of the complexity that comes with moving money, so our merchants can deliver the simplest experience to their customers." The shift changes what simple means for merchants. Where the company's early simplicity came from doing one thing well, its value today comes from absorbing the complexity of multiple payment rails on the merchant's behalf while offering considerably more capability. Catherine Korsten, chief growth officer at Ozow, says merchants engage with Ozow in ways suited to the complexity of their business. Enterprise merchants typically come to Ozow for bespoke solutioning around their own specific payment needs. Ozow's developer hub has had an agentic-first update, enabling businesses to integrate Ozow through a single prompt, while enhanced plugins let merchants on the most popular e-commerce platforms integrate quickly and easily, unlocking Ozow's full suite of payment services rather than Pay by Bank alone. "We want to be your expert partner in how money moves all the way through your business, not just when your customer pays you," says Korsten. Smart orchestration was a topic highlighted by Ozow's chief technology officer, Riaan Hanekom: a system designed to understand both the merchant and the consumer within a transaction, balancing how a customer prefers to pay with the merchant's priorities - whether that is speed, reliability or cost - to determine the most appropriate payment experience for each transaction. Fraud prevention is a further part of that shift. South Africa recorded the highest suspected digital fraud rate of any African country in 2025, at 3.0% of transactions, according to TransUnion's H1 2026 Top Fraud Trends report. Rutendo Nyathi, chief risk and governance officer at Ozow, sees the company's risk and governance function as an enabler, not a blocker, and has built a team combining internal and external intelligence tools with visibility across its merchant base and industries, catching fraud patterns early before they become individual incidents. Over the past six months, that capability has prevented hundreds of millions of rands in potential fraudulent transactions. That update follows work to make Ozow's technical documentation discoverable and readable by AI, enabling agents to interpret the guidance and act on it directly rather than requiring developers to translate documentation into integration steps manually. "As we take on more of the payments stack for our merchants, we take on more of the responsibility that comes with it," says Cowan. "That means smart routing, fraud protection and AI technology that all work invisibly in the background, so our merchants never have to think about it." Hanekom used a concept demo to show where this could lead: an AI agent given standing permission to top up an electricity account whenever the balance falls below a set threshold, within a defined spending limit, completing the purchase autonomously and carrying what Hanekom called a "permission slip" - proof of who authorised the transaction and the boundaries within which it may act. It's a look at what agentic commerce could mean for South African businesses, and a view to how Ozow is viewing the future of commerce. Cowan points to what she calls an "autonomous finance stack" as the direction this is heading: pay-ins, payouts and reconciliation happening without manual intervention, and over time, more of the processes that touch money in a business automated so Ozow's role extends from a payments partner to a broader financial infrastructure partner.

SA's Ozow, FNB, RMB advance API-driven payments with launch of FNB payment API. South African fintech startup Ozow has partnered with First National Bank (FNB) and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) to launch a new API-driven payment solution th... Xcobean Tech Desk Xcobean Systems Ozow, a South African fintech startup, has joined forces with First National Bank (FNB) and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) to introduce an API-driven payment solution. This new platform aims to improve the efficiency and security of account-to-account transactions for FNB and RMB customers. While this development is primarily focused on South African banks, it holds significant implications for businesses in Kenya and East Africa. The integration of advanced APIs can enhance transaction reliability and security, which are crucial factors for regional financial institutions and merchants looking to expand their services. As such, Kenyan firms should consider adopting similar API-driven solutions to stay competitive and meet the growing demand for secure and efficient payment methods. Tech News Analysis

Transitioning from Adview to OneDash: building a unified workspace for South African SMEs. Why Onedash is changing its name, what it means for its existing users, and how OneDash is simplifying business operations with a unified inbox, CRM, and localized payment integrations. At Adview, Onedash started with a straightforward goal: to help businesses automate and understand their customer conversations. Onedash built a platform to track active chats, manage basic AI agents, and monitor weekly message volumes. But as Onedash worked closely with the growing South African businesses using its tool, Onedash realized Onedash were only solving a small part of a much bigger problem. Its customers didn't just want another conversational dashboard. They were experiencing "tool fatigue." Running a business meant constantly logging in and out of different systems - juggling WhatsApp Web on one tab, a CRM on another, a basic invoicing tool on a third, and local payment portals on a fourth. To solve this, Onedash realized Onedash needed to build more than a chat widget. Onedash needed to build a unified workspace. Today, Onedash is officially catching up to that reality by rebranding from Adview to OneDash. What is OneDash? Its new name represents its primary focus: One Simple Dashboard For Your Business. OneDash consolidates your communication, sales, and financial workflows into a single system. Instead of paying for and managing multiple disconnected software subscriptions, you can run your operations from one tab. What's new and improved? 1. A Unified Omnichannel Inbox Instead of managing chats on separate screens, you can now link your official WhatsApp Business API, Web Chat, and Bulk SMS into one shared team inbox. Multiple team members can respond to customers simultaneously without logging each other out. 2. Localized Payment Integrations Invoicing and getting paid shouldn't be manual. Onedash has built deep integrations with South Africa's trusted payment gateways: Yoco, Ozow, and PayFast. * Generate pay-links directly inside your customer chats. * Automatically embed scan-to-pay QR codes onto PDF invoices and quotes. * Track payment statuses in real-time with automatic reconciliation. 3. Integrated CRM & Inventory Every conversation is linked to a customer profile. You can move leads through your sales pipeline, track their purchase history, and check your real-time inventory levels without leaving the inbox. 4. Practical AI Agents (RAG) Its AI agents have evolved. You can now train your AI assistant by uploading FAQs, PDFs, and website URLs. The AI uses this context to accurately resolve tier-1 queries, and seamlessly hands the conversation over to a human agent when a complex issue arises. What does this mean for existing Adview users? If you are already using its platform, the transition is seamless: * No Disruption: Your active conversations, AI setups, and integrations remain completely intact. * Credits & Billing: Your credits wallet and account balance transfer over exactly as they are. * New UI/UX: You will notice a cleaner, more intuitive sidebar and a highly optimized dashboard. The road ahead. Onedash is not trying to build the most complex software on the market. Its goal is to build the most practical, reliable, and straightforward tool for South African SMEs to run their operations and get paid faster. Thank you to every business owner, manager, and developer who has given Onedash feedback and helped Onedash shape this next step. Onedash is excited to build the future of business operations together under the OneDash name. Have questions about the rebrand? Get in touch with its team via the portal support desk, or explore the new dashboard today. See OneDash in action. Unify WhatsApp, CRM, invoicing, and PayFast, Ozow, Yoco, and Paystack payments in one platform. 14-day free trial, no credit card.