Netherlands-based online payments provider PayU has announced its expansion across Central America to offer payment processing and PCI compliance services. Following their expansion to Ghana, PayU’s strategy targets Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.

 The company will offer card processing for USD, but also for local currencies, including GTQ (Guatemalan Quetzal), HNL (Honduran Lempira), SVC (El. Salvador Colon), and CRC (Costa Rican Colon). PayU will provide full PCI compliance services, along with online security capabilities and anti-fraud protection that will be integrated.

Those include 3-D Secure 2. 0, and machine learning tools established to manage transaction risks. The ecommerce market of Central America Currently, Central America is a growing ecommerce market.

Considering increased financial inclusion and a higher degree of internet access, it is expected for the region to further develop in the next five years. International purchases are used frequently, representing almost two-thirds of ecommerce in Panama and El Salvador in 2021, according to data cited by PayU in the official company press release. Following this expansion, the access given to these markets will deliver revenue-generation opportunities to regional and global merchants that are already using PayU’s payment solutions.

According to the CEO Mario Shiliashki, this will attract new customers looking to benefit of Central America’s growing ecommerce landscape. PayU’s online payment strategy PayU represents the e-payment and fintech business of Prosus, Netherlands-based global investment group. The payment service provider is active across other parts of Central America, including Panama, and over Latin America as well.

In 2022, PayU concentrated on different geographies, such as Ghana and India. In June 2022, PayU announced its expansion to Ghana, introducing new offerings, including PayFlex in South Africa, Scan to Pay and Pay by USSD capabilities in Nigeria. As explained at the time, the expansion marked a strategy to introduce alternative payment methods aimed at enlarging the platform’s merchant base.

They also integrated more businesses, and devised plans to boost financial inclusion and digitalisation across the continent. Earlier this year, the payment service provider has rolled out Checkout in India, Bharat, offering payment flow and payment checkout in multiple major Indian languages. With the new feature, merchants gained access to localised shopping in Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada, which are the first languages of 79% of Indians.

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