Overview
Ozow (formerly i-Pay) is South Africa's leading instant-EFT payment gateway – bank-to-bank pull via online banking. Popular for large-ticket purchases where card-fees are prohibitive. The Automize Ozow connector covers payment initiation + status lookups.
- Regions: South Africa only. Supports major SA banks (Standard Bank, FNB, ABSA, Nedbank, Capitec, Investec, African Bank, Bidvest).
- Plans: Pay-per-transaction. No monthly fees.
Setting up the connection
Auth type: Bearer Token.
- Sign in to Ozow Hub → Account → Security Settings.
- Generate an API Key + Private Key + Site Code.
- In Automize, open Settings → Connectors → Ozow → Add connection. Paste credentials.
Find your credentials at https://hub.ozow.com/Account/SecuritySettings.
Rate limits
No published rate limits beyond reasonable use. Connector retries 429 with backoff.
Data model
Payment-centric:
Site (your merchant configuration) ─── Payments ─── Transactions
(one Ozow payment may comprise
multiple transactions on the
bank's side)Available operations
3 operations available. Click any row to jump to its detail.
| Operation | Category | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Create payment | General | Initiate an instant EFT payment via Ozow. |
| Get payment status | General | Get payment status by transaction ID from Ozow. |
| Get transaction | General | Get transaction details from Ozow. |
Operations
Create payment
Initiate an instant EFT payment via Ozow.
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Amount amount | Yes | number | |
Bank reference bankReference | Yes | text |
Tips
- amount (ZAR) + bankReference (your reference, shown on customer statement).
- Returns a redirect URL – send the customer there to complete the EFT in their banking app.
- Set notifyUrl for server-to-server status callbacks (preferred over polling).
Get payment status
Get payment status by transaction ID from Ozow.
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Transaction ID transactionId | Yes | text |
Tips
- transactionId from Create Payment. Returns status: Pending, Complete, Cancelled, Error, Abandoned.
Get transaction
Get transaction details from Ozow.
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Transaction ID transactionId | Yes | text |
Tips
- Returns transaction-level detail (bank-side) for a payment.
FAQ
- Why is Ozow vs PayFast vs card?
- Ozow = instant EFT (customer logs into bank in-flow). Lower fees than cards, fast settlement, but the customer needs online banking + has to manually authorise the payment. Good for large ZAR amounts.
- What's the customer flow?
- 1) Create Payment, get redirect URL. 2) Customer visits URL, picks bank, logs in via Ozow's secure proxy. 3) Customer approves payment in their banking app. 4) Ozow notifies your notifyUrl on completion.
- Sandbox?
- Yes – Ozow provides test credentials + a sandbox environment. Set environment=test on the connection. Use Ozow's test bank for end-to-end flow without real money.
- Settlement timing?
- Instant – funds reflect in your Ozow account within seconds, then payout to your merchant bank account on a configurable schedule (typically T+1).