Glossary
Glossary of payment terms
Definitions of the most commonly used terms in the African payment ecosystem. Mobile money, payment processing, security, compliance.
Mobile Money
- Airtel Money
- Airtel's mobile money service, reachable through Wajub in Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, DR Congo, Gabon, Malawi, Niger and Congo.
- M-Pesa
- Mobile money service from Safaricom and Vodacom, very popular in Kenya and Tanzania, also present in Mozambique. One of the first mobile money services in the world.
- Mobile Money
- Payment service via mobile phone using airtime credit or an electronic wallet. Major operators in Africa: MTN MoMo, Orange Money, Wave, M-Pesa, Airtel Money.
- MTN MoMo
- MTN Mobile Money, available in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia. Leading mobile payment method in Central and West Africa.
- Orange Money
- Orange mobile money service, available in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea.
- Push Payment
- Payment initiated by the payer (the customer sends money). Dominant mobile money model in Africa, as opposed to pull payment (bank card).
- USSD
- Unstructured Supplementary Service Data - communication protocol used by GSM networks for mobile money transactions. Works on all phones, even without internet.
- Wave
- Popular mobile money service in Senegal and Ivory Coast, known for low fees and simple interface.
Payment Processing
- Approval Rate
- Percentage of authorized transactions out of total attempts. A 94% approval rate means 94 out of 100 transactions are accepted.
- Beneficiary
- Registered transfer recipient.
- BYOP
- Bring Your Own Provider: you connect your own accounts at your providers. Funds go to them; Wajub bills the subscription and orchestration usage.
- Circuit Breaker
- A mechanism that sets aside a connection that keeps failing, then puts it back in service as soon as it works again. Payments stop going to a connection that is down, and the approval rate holds.
- Components
- Interface components (JavaScript, React, Vue, Svelte) that mount the Wajub checkout inside your own page.
- Customer
- Customer who pays (identified or anonymous).
- Dispute
- Dispute opened by the customer or bank.
- Failover
- Moving to another connection when the first one fails. At Wajub, only for mobile money, and never once your customer has received the payment request, so they never pay twice. A card payment stays with the provider the card was entered with.
- Invoice
- Named invoice with items, VAT, due date.
- Link
- Shareable payment link (product, event, donation, crowdfunding).
- Orchestration
- The layer that decides, for each payment, which connection carries it, in what order to try the others and when to stop. At Wajub: connections are ranked by your priorities, your rules and their current health, and a mobile money payment that fails moves on to the next one.
- Refund
- Full or partial refund of a transaction.
- Sandbox
- Free, unlimited, isolated test environment.
- Settlement
- Settlement: the moment collected money becomes available on your account. The delay depends on the provider and the rail used.
- Smart Retry
- A deferred new attempt on a failed payment. Wajub does not retry a failed payment later: moving to another connection happens on the spot, and offering the customer another try is up to you.
- Smart Routing
- Choosing the connection that carries a payment based on defined criteria. At Wajub, connections are ranked by your priorities, your rules and their current health.
- Sync
- Connected accounts for platforms that collect on behalf of their merchants.
- Transaction
- Payment attempt, from pending to complete or failed.
- Transfer
- Single outgoing payment to a beneficiary.
- Wajub rail
- Wajub's own connection: in Cameroon, MTN MoMo and Orange Money with no provider contract on your side. A commission per payment applies depending on your plan.
- Webhook
- Signed HTTP notification of an event.
Security
- 3D Secure / SCA
- Strong Customer Authentication: stronger authentication for card payments, handled by the card provider you connect.
- Shield
- Anti-fraud controls applied to payments: blocklists, rules and thresholds.
- Tokenisation
- Replacement of sensitive payment data (card number, mobile money number) with a unique token. Enables recurring payments without storing sensitive data.
Compliance
- AML / CFT
- Anti-Money Laundering / Combating the Financing of Terrorism - measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
- BCEAO
- Central Bank of West African States - issuing institute of the UEMOA zone (XOF). Regulates payment services in 8 West African countries.
- BEAC
- Bank of Central African States - issuing institute of the CEMAC zone (XAF). Regulates payment services in 6 Central African countries.
- KYC / KYB
- Know Your Customer / Know Your Business - identity verification process for customers (KYC) and businesses (KYB). Regulatory requirement for financial services.
- PCI DSS
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard: the security standard for card data. Wajub holds no PCI DSS certification; cards are typed into the providers you connect and never reach Wajub.
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