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Accept Donations in South African Rand with PayFast

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  • By
Eric Daams

Our goal is for Charitable to be a donation plugin for organizations every everywhere — not just in currencies that are supported by PayPal.

That’s why we created our PayUMoney extension last year; it’s why we built out our Easy Digital Downloads integration; and it’s why we just made it possible for you to accept donations in South African Rand with our PayFast plugin.

What is PayFast?

PayFast is a popular South African payment gateway that provides a secure, easy way for organizations to accept donations in their local currency.

With PayPal, you could still accept donations but the transactions take place in US Dollars, which then have to be converted to ZAR. PayFast processes all transactions in South African Rand, so your donors can give in their own currency.

No wonder PayFast’s popularity has exploded in South Africa!

Our PayFast integration comes just in time for the Cape Town Hackathon later this month, which we are contributing to as sponsors.

Charitable PayFast is available to purchase on its own, or you can purchase either of the Charitable Plus or Charitable Pro packages, which offers great savings for non-profits who need some of our other extensions.

Not in South Africa and still looking for a gateway that suits you? We would love to hear from you. Leave us a comment below or get in touch via our Support form.

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Eric Daams
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2 responses to “Accept Donations in South African Rand with PayFast”

  1. Dimitri Dhuyvetter Avatar
    Dimitri Dhuyvetter

    The nice thing about PayFast is that they accept Bitcoin as well, which is automatically converted to Rand by BitX, South Africa’s biggest Bitcion exchange. So the calculation of Bitcoin price and transferring Rand to a South African bank account is all handled by PayFast.

    Reply
    1. ericnicolaas Avatar
      ericnicolaas

      Great point Dimitri! I also like their Instant EFT method, which allows you to do internet banking transfers immediately. Like doing a credit card payment, without the credit card 🙂

      Reply

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