Value-Added Services

Overview

Nav.Wallet extends beyond basic money transfer to offer value-added services (VAS) that customers use daily. By integrating airtime and bill payments directly into the wallet, customers can manage everyday expenses without cash.

Airtime Purchases

Customers purchase prepaid airtime for any supported mobile network directly from their wallet balance:

  1. Select network operator
  2. Enter amount (or choose preset denomination)
  3. Confirm with PIN
  4. Airtime credited to the specified phone number

Failure Handling

  • If the airtime vend fails at the operator, the wallet debit is automatically reversed within 30 seconds
  • Circuit breaker pattern protects against cascading failures (5 consecutive failures → 30s cooldown)
  • Customers receive clear failure notification with reversal confirmation

Bill Payments

Customers pay recurring bills to supported billers:

  1. Select biller from registry
  2. Enter account/meter number
  3. System validates the bill reference with the biller
  4. Confirm payment amount and PIN
  5. Payment processed and confirmation sent

Supported Biller Categories

CategoryExamples
ElectricityEskom, City Power, municipal prepaid
WaterRand Water, municipal accounts
TelevisionDSTV, Openview
MunicipalRates, refuse collection

Biller Registry

  • Maintained in the wallet.biller_registry table
  • Each biller has a validation endpoint for account number verification
  • Billers can be activated/deactivated by administrators
  • New billers added through the Admin Portal without code changes

Technical Resilience

The VAS Engine implements several reliability patterns:

  • Circuit breaker — Prevents repeated calls to failing external APIs
  • Automatic reversal — Failed operations reverse within 30 seconds
  • Idempotency — Duplicate requests produce the same result without double-charging
  • Confirmation notifications — Every successful VAS transaction triggers a notification via the customer’s preferred channel

Revenue Model

VAS transactions generate revenue through:

  • Airtime margin — Discounted bulk purchase from operators, retail at face value
  • Bill payment convenience fee — Small flat fee per bill payment transaction
  • Volume incentives — Higher margins at scale through operator partnerships