Quick answer #
Pay@ Gateway verification typically completes within 24 hours of you submitting your FICA documents. Many applicants are verified within 2–4 hours during business hours. You can start using the sandbox immediately after signing up — you don’t need to wait for verification to test and build your integration.
What “verified” means #
Verification is a regulatory requirement under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA). Until your business is verified, Pay@ can’t legally process live payments on your behalf. Once verified, you can start accepting real customer payments.
While you wait, you have full access to:
- The merchant dashboard
- Sandbox API keys for testing
- All plugin installation flows
- Documentation, settlement reports preview, and reporting tools
This means a developer or agency can fully build and test your integration before your account goes live. You hit “go live” the moment verification clears.
The 24-hour SLA #
For the majority of standard SME merchant applications submitted with complete documentation, verification completes within 24 hours of the documents being uploaded. About 70% complete within 4 business hours.
The 24-hour SLA assumes:
- All required FICA documents were uploaded
- Documents are clear and readable (no blurry phone photos)
- The business is registered on the SA CIPC database (for Pty Ltd)
- The director and shareholder details on the application match the CIPC records
- The business bank account is in the company’s name
What can delay verification #
Three things account for almost all delays beyond 24 hours:
- Document quality — blurry, cropped, or screenshotted documents have to be resubmitted. Always upload the original PDF or a high-quality photo.
- CIPC mismatch — if your directors’ details on Pay@ don’t match the official CIPC records (often because of a recent change), we flag for manual review.
- Bank account verification — the test deposit or bank verification service occasionally takes longer for certain banks, particularly TymeBank and Discovery Bank.
If your verification is taking longer than 24 hours, see My verification is taking longer than expected for what to do.
Same-day approval for verified applicants #
Once verified, the rest of your go-live takes minutes, not days:
- Install the WooCommerce or Shopify plugin and enter your live API key
- Or wire up the REST API for a custom integration
- Process your first test transaction
- Switch to live mode
For SMEs who complete signup before 12:00 SAST on a business day, “go live this afternoon” is genuinely the typical outcome — not a marketing claim.
Related articles #
- What documents do I need for FICA / KYC — Article 02
- My verification is taking longer than expected — Article 04
- How to sign up for Pay@ Gateway — Article 01
- When will I get paid — Article 30
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