SA fintech TurnStay processes $60.5m in travel payments in six months
TurnStay, a South African fintech that helps African travel businesses collect payments from international guests, has processed more than R1 billion (approx. $60.5 million) in transactions so far this year, a milestone reached in six months and three years after the company was founded, the company said Monday.
TurnStay builds payment infrastructure for hotels, safari lodges, tour operators and villa agencies across the continent. The company has raised a $300,000 pre-seed round in 2024 and a $2 million seed round in 2025, and is now preparing a Series A raise to fund continued expansion across Africa.
Alon Stern, CEO and co-founder of TurnStay, said the growth reflects a cost gap the company was built to close. “Getting paid can be expensive in the travel industry, and for a long time African merchants have carried a much heavier cost than their overseas counterparts for doing exactly the same job,” he said.
Traditional local payment processing for foreign travel bookings can cost merchants as much as 8 per cent of the transaction, TurnStay said. Its clients pay from as little as 1.6 per cent, roughly half the going rate. The saving comes from combining a merchant-of-record model with modern payment rails that include stablecoins to move funds across borders quickly and at low cost.
Stern said global platforms have used the merchant-of-record model for years, and TurnStay has brought the same infrastructure directly to African travel merchants, without requiring the scale of a company like Airbnb to access it.
TurnStay operates as a licensed financial services provider in South Africa and is pursuing further licensing in international markets, as part of a push to formalise and de-risk cross-border travel payments for its merchants.
The company’s clients span luxury safari lodges, tour operators, villa agencies and other travel merchants across the continent, including Singita, Safari.com, Londolozi and The Capital. TurnStay is based in South Africa, with growing activity in Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana.
“Three years ago there were two of us and an idea,” Stern said. “Now we’re processing over a billion rand every six months for some of the best-known names in African travel, and we have just begun.”
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