Much like taxes and dental appointments, traffic fines are an inevitable part of life. As much as we dislike them, these pesky penalties serve a crucial purpose: to curb reckless driving behaviour that could lead to vehicle damage, injuries, or worse – death. In South Africa, hundreds of thousands of traffic fines are issued annually, yet a significant number remain unpaid. Whether due to time constraints, forgetfulness or sheer ignorance, many drivers find themselves owing hundreds if not thousands of rands in traffic fines, not realising there’s a simple and efficient online tool available to ease their conscience and avoid penalties: Fines SA.
From personalised number plates to a digital management system
The story of Fines SA dates back to the turn of the century when entrepreneur and founder, Barry Berman, introduced personalised number plates to South Africa. These unique plates allowed car enthusiasts and collectors to express themselves, market their brands, or simply have a good laugh.
“After a while, however, a challenge emerged where our clients couldn’t allocate these number plates to their vehicles due to outstanding fines and traffic system blocks. I started investigating as our clients were happy to pay their fines, but there was no streamlined national system to make the process easy and efficient,” said Barry.
“As a solution, I started the Fines SA business (which up until 2018 was named Mekaish Traffic Fine Management) that sought to professionalise the fragmented traffic fine industry by leveraging cutting-edge proprietary software and expertise,” continued Barry.
While Barry had the motivation and skillset, he didn’t have an easy task ahead of him as the industry was fragmented with over 250 municipalities that needed to be connected to the Fines SA system.
“The process took 10 years, but with a lot of persistence I finally got there. Now through the system municipalities across the country receive a lot more payments than before, and the public has a user-friendly system to make payments and save on fines. I’ve also been able to grow my business and offer jobs to over 65 employees,” said Barry.
The way the platform works is simple. Motorists create an account on the Fines SA website to easily view any outstanding fines associated with their registered vehicle. They can then select the fine(s) they wish to pay and complete the payment with one of the conveniently listed payment methods displayed through the Payfast by Network payment page. Once the payment is processed, Fines SA sends an electronic receipt.
“Today, we lead the industry in assisting with all things related to fines, whether it’s business-to-business interactions or serving individual motorists. And since the integration of Payfast by Network to accept payments, our fines management process has reached new heights,” said Barry.
Integrating with Payfast by Network for streamlined online payments
Fines SA partnered with Payfast, Network Interational’s ecommerce payment solution for South African businesses, in 2020 to make it easy for motorists to securely pay their fines via their preferred payment method.
“Integrating our platform with Payfast has been a game changer as paying a fine is a grudge purchase, so you want a seamless and pain-free process to make the problem go away,” said Barry.
“We enjoy using the intuitive Payfast Dashboard to manage our business, and appreciate the payment methods they provide our customers, which currently sits at over 18 – including SnapScan, Zapper, Scan to Pay, Mobicred, credit and debit cards and Instant EFT. Overall, the tech integrates well with our platform and thus far we’ve had zero downtime,“ concluded Barry.
With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Fines SA has become a trusted and leading platform for paying car fines. In addition to offering customised number plates and an easy way to pay fines, they have expanded their offering to include additional vehicle administration services such as license renewal, registrations and number transfers.
To find out how Payfast can help revolutionise the way your business accepts payments, check out Payfast.io or reach out to our Sales team for more information.