Moya Messenger, the #datafree messaging app that launched in South Africa in 2018 has announced its own payment portal that functions in the existing app called MoyaPayD. The new feature will allow users the ability to send and receive money in an app that doesn’t charge data or airtime, making it essentially ‘free’ to use.

Moya’s model is an interesting one though. The company has a deal with local mobile networks that allows them to zero-rate their app for certain functions (like sending text messages, accessing certain news sites and now payments). In return, they serve users short video ads that generate money for them, with which they pay the mobile networks for the data used.

MoyaPayD the price

So, while the app is essentially ‘free’ to use, you pay with your eyeballs, like most news, social media and entertainment these days. Now MoyaPayD makes sending and receiving money even more accessible through its massive network of over 1 million users (as of 2019).

“MoyaPayD will support micro payments, e.g. R0.10, upwards,” says Datafree CEO Gour Lentell in an email.

Users can quickly sign up for payments through MoyaPayD if they have a valid South African ID. All you’ll have to do is enter your personal info, verify that ID doc and you’re set to send and receive cash. Small traders and businesses can easily make use of the feature if they don’t have card facilities.

Moya is available to download on the Google Play Store and Huawei AppGallery (No Apple compatibility yet).