Fold + Paystack
Fold and Paystack: how church giving is processed and settled
Paystack is a payment processor licensed in Ghana that accepts mobile money and card payments and settles them to a named account, and it is the processor behind every mobile money gift made through Fold.
How it works
Fold holds one Paystack account under the trading name Fold Church Giving. Each church on Fold gets a subaccount naming the church's own settlement destination, with the platform's share set to zero. When a member gives, Paystack charges the fee and settles the rest to the church. Fold never holds the money.
Paystack tells Fold the moment a payment succeeds, over a signed webhook, and Fold records the gift against the member and fund and queues the thank you text. Every payment carries a reference, so a treasurer can match any line on a Paystack statement to a line in Fold.
It was chosen because it is licensed by the Bank of Ghana, its Ghana fee is flat with no minimum, it supports all three mobile money networks and cards, and it publishes its pricing. Hubtel and others are comparable; the differences are small enough that the flat fee and the subaccount model decided it.
- Fee
- 1.95% per mobile money or local card gift
- Minimum fee
- None
- Monthly fee
- None
- Fold's share
- 0%
- Regulated by
- Bank of Ghana, as a payment service provider
- Networks
- MTN, Telecel and AirtelTigo for giving; cards for Fold subscriptions
Setting it up
- Nothing to sign up for. Fold's Paystack account is already in place.
- On the Payouts page, the church names its settlement destination and Fold creates the subaccount.
- Gifts settle to the church, usually the next working day, and appear in Fold as they succeed.
Questions
- Can a church use its own Paystack account with Fold?
- Not at present. Fold uses one account with a subaccount per church, which is what lets every church settle to its own destination without each one applying to Paystack.
- What does Fold see of a member's payment details?
- The phone number used and the amount. Fold never sees or stores card numbers or wallet PINs; those go to Paystack directly.
- What happens if Paystack is down on Sunday?
- Gifts fail cleanly and the member sees a message saying so. Cash recorded on the count sheet is unaffected, and mobile money can be tried again later.
Fold also works with
Paystack and your register, together
Thirty days free with your own church, no card, and nothing to install.