Back in August, Uber introduced a cash payment option for its users in Kenya. The company said that it did this since users in the country preferred to pay in cash as the adoption of credit cards was still, very low. This was followed by a similar experiment in Nigeria where it was also successful.
With the success the company has seen in Nigeria and in Kenya, Uber is also planning to introduce a cash payment option in South Africa. The company will be introducing this feature in the country this week as a pilot project before its full roll out.
Uber will be introducing the pilot cash payment option to half of its partner drivers in South Africa according to Fin24. Uber has been available in South Africa since 2013 but has only accepted payment through credit cards since then. This will all change later this week (on May 26) when the cash payment option is available to some users in South Africa.
The cash payment option will be rolled out in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. This will be the first time where the cash payment option will go live across five cities at the same time.
“If it goes well, we will obviously scale it up. We need to see if it will increase the sign-up flow,” said Uber’s head for Sub-Saharan Africa Alon Lits. When this feature is available, users will be prompted to choose cash or credit card payments when using the app.
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