Merchant credit card fees can really eat into a small vendor’s profits especially when they are first starting out.

Shakeem Albouy has launched Working On It, an app that can help Bermuda entrepreneurs avoid them.

“A lot of small-business owners in Bermuda don’t even have business bank accounts,” he said.

He called Working On It a super app that allows you to access everything from local services and events to products.

“It gives the feel of an Amazon storefront or Eventbrite or Upwork for services,” he said. “Traditionally, it can take six months or more to push a new idea out to the island and get it up and running. You can sign up and accept payments the same day, once you have gotten through the verification process.”

For taxi drivers, this would involve collecting their licence number and registration details, and a matching utility bill.

“We do ‘know your customer’ checking on the back end,” he said.

He charges $1.50 to customers and a transactional fee of 5 per cent to merchants. Working On It accepts the funds on behalf of the business, then pays out at the end of the week.

“It is like a weekly paycheque that happens,” he said.

“In comparison, credit card companies typically charge 3.75 per cent with a monthly fee for the card machine around $60,” he said.

He added that with credit cards, there are also costs for receipts and maintenance fees from the bank, while the payment gateway can also charge $25 a month, plus ten cents per transaction, and $15 per refund from the bank.

“Typically, our vendors transact less than $3,000 a month so it is less in fees,” he said.

There are also no subscription fees for payees.

He is quick to say that he is a payment aggregator rather than a payment gateway.

“The Bermuda Monetary Authority is still trying to figure out what to do with payment aggregators,” he said. “I am not the only one here.”

He said there are also payment aggregators who work with local tour operators.

He started building the app at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and launched his live payment product last November.

There are now more than 200 vendors using his QR Code-based Working On It pay product. When scanned, the code opens a payment page.

“All the customer has to do now is enter in the amount of service, their credit card information and their e-mail address to receive a receipt,” he said.

He described it as a “smash hit” for taxi drivers.

“Many of them do not take credit card payments,” he said. “They feel they are missing out and want to be able to make as much money as possible. They are losing corporate travellers who rely on cards.”

There is no subscription fee for the payee.

Mr Albouy’s next frontier is fast dining. His programme called Woi Eats, allows restaurant customers to scan a QR Code at the table, see the menu on their phone and order and pay without a waiter taking their order.

“By the time the waiter brings the food, it has already been paid for,” he said.

He compared his vision to chains in the US such as Chipotle, where online orders and in‑person orders run in parallel.

“The online volume can far exceed the people that are walking through,” he said.

Mr Albouy, a cyber underwriter, was inspired by an 11-month secondment in Singapore.

“Singapore is one of the most technologically advanced places in the world,” he said.

He was fascinated by how the country commonly used a QR Code system for digital payments.

“I retrofitted that into Bermuda,” he said.

• For more information, seewww.workingonit.tech