Verifying interbank EFT payments in "real time"?

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Sbbw

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Edit: The thread title should really read "inter-account" and not "inter-bank", as the latter is not really possible in SA, I don't think - not in "real time", in any case.

So I've been searching around, and was wondering if the local banks offer any kind of platform to verify inter-account EFT statements in real time? There must be something available, because there's places like Payfast and prepaid24.co.za who both offer "instant" EFT payments, and seem to be using different platforms. I've tested a transfer between two Standard Bank accounts, and it took a few hours to come through, so not sure what I'm missing here. I know most banks offer a corporate-type access platform, where you can view real time statements, so not sure if that's the answer, but does anyone know of any solutions offered directly by the banks? Or is it a matter of writing a program that scrapes the statement view from the normal internet banking portals and working from there?

Any thoughts or advice? Thanks in advance!

Additional - There's also the verify payment links on FNB and Nedbank, but these aren't available on Standard Bank or ABSA, so not really a solution.
 
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ant_man said:
Not too sure what you will be using this for but you can try a company called mygate
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Basically, I want to get real time updates over a internet-based application whenever a EFT arrives, but without the usual 24-48 hr delay, and directly from the bank itself. The problem with Payfast and SID is that the payment must be done through their gateway, so the user can't just make a payment using a specified beneficiary reference. So their setup won't work.

MyGate don't seem to offer any type of "instant" EFT payment system, so not sure they can help.
 
The only other one is PayU but you will need to use their platform
I think the best would be to speak directly to the banks as I am sure they must have something like this running, which you can just tap into
I have asked a connection of mine if he knows anything, I will come back to you once he responds.
 
ant_man said:
The only other one is PayU but you will need to use their platform
I think the best would be to speak directly to the banks as I am sure they must have something like this running, which you can just tap into
I have asked a connection of mine if he knows anything, I will come back to you once he responds.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I've emailed all the major banks, but I'm finding either they don't really know and keep referring me to different departments, or they just don't get back to me at all :P

Sinbad said:
inContact plus procmail ;)
Click to expand...

It is a possibility, but I'm just worried about how realiable it's going to be. And of course, how it will work with all banks. Standard Bank, for example, are pretty useless with their notifications. Then again, they're pretty useless at most things :P
 
ant_man said:
Have you tried https://www.22seven.com/
Not too sure if they do a Corporate Version, but its worth a try to see.
Click to expand...

Had a look, but I don't think they update in real time (probably every X hours or something), and they don't seem to provide a way to export the data out through an API or similar, which I'll need to make everything automated.
 
The functionality you are looking for exists.
We use it within our company to accept payments from our vendors.

So, the vendor will deposit money into our FNB/Standard/Nedbank/Absa account using some assigned reference. We will then receive a notification that someone deposited money with this reference. Our system picks this up and performs a credit on the vendors account.

We used this to remove the manual accounting process.
 
VG008 said:
The functionality you are looking for exists.
We use it within our company to accept payments from our vendors.

So, the vendor will deposit money into our FNB/Standard/Nedbank/Absa account using some assigned reference. We will then receive a notification that someone deposited money with this reference. Our system picks this up and performs a credit on the vendors account.

We used this to remove the manual accounting process.
Click to expand...

Are those same back or inter-bank transfers.
 
The suppliers I deal with all have bank accounts with multiple banks so they can see immediately if a payment has been made. If I make a Nedbank to Nedbank payment, it reflects within one minute in the beneficiary's account, but there is a lag if it is from a different bank, especially Capitec or BidVest Bank
 
Thanks for the responses.

@VG008 do you know how your company receives the notifications? Is it a specific software gateway that the bank provides, or just the generic alerts most banks send via emai/sms?

Seems having accounts with all the major banks is the way to go, but I'm still unsure if any of the banks offer a type of API to integrate custom software with, or whether I need to make do with the generic email/sms alerts most of them offer (which isn't always perfect), or "scrape" the data by running a script that logs into the normal internet banking and downloads a csv export every X minutes, which is fairly inefficient.
 
Sbbw said:
Thanks for the responses.

@VG008 do you know how your company receives the notifications? Is it a specific software gateway that the bank provides, or just the generic alerts most banks send via emai/sms?

Seems having accounts with all the major banks is the way to go, but I'm still unsure if any of the banks offer a type of API to integrate custom software with, or whether I need to make do with the generic email/sms alerts most of them offer (which isn't always perfect), or "scrape" the data by running a script that logs into the normal internet banking and downloads a csv export every X minutes, which is fairly inefficient.
Click to expand...

Interbank transfer does exist, but it is really expensive. For example, FNB has that pay & clear now function, which performs EFTs within banks in real time. It is costs like R30 per transaction.

Each bank has an API.
Absa : Soap messages are sent in real time
FNB : Provides a jar file, which downloads each transaction every 5 minutes
Nedbank : Has a SMS function & Soap interface
Std Bank : File based - downloaded every 1 hour (configurable)
 
Bidorbuy is also doing this, they have the Bobpay system so payment clears to the seller straight away!
 
Sounds promising.

@VG008 - do you know what any of the banks call their API platforms? I'm battling to get even one of them to admit they have something similar, and I've tried via email and calling them (which just sees me being transfered from department to department, with long silences after I explain what I'm looking for - or I'm transfered back to the normal internet banking support, who don't have a clue).
 
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