Turnstay

TurnStay is a South African fintech that builds cross-border payment and finance infrastructure for travel and tourism businesses in Africa, including safari lodges, tour operators, villa rental agencies and accommodation providers. Its platform combines a merchant-of-record structure with payment orchestration: card payments from international travellers are processed in the traveller's own market and currency, while funds are settled to the African merchant in local currency, using stablecoins as part of the cross-border settlement rails so that neither the merchant nor the traveller holds crypto assets. The company states this approach can cut payment costs by up to 70% and shorten settlement times; it says African hotels and tour operators can pay as much as 8% to accept foreign cards through local systems, while TurnStay's rates start at 1.6%.

Product components advertised include payment links, virtual cards, a developer API and borderless checkout on the acceptance side; multi-account management, refunds and chargebacks, and fraud detection under its merchant-of-record role; and integrations with booking and property management systems, smart routing and reporting. TurnStay states it is PCI DSS v4.0.1 certified. Named customers include Singita, Safari.com, Londolozi, The Capital, Thornybush, Arathusa Safari Lodge and Madekwe.

Founding story

TurnStay was founded in 2021 by Alon Stern, who previously co-founded Slide Financial and worked at Prodigy Finance, and James Hedley, a co-founder of Quicket, to reduce the cost for African travel and tourism merchants of accepting payments from international travellers by applying techniques used by the largest global booking companies. Stern is co-founder and CEO; Hedley serves as COO.

Business model

TurnStay acts as merchant of record and payment processor for travel merchants, taking on payments, merchant fees, fraud, chargebacks and sales tax while settling funds locally to the operator. Revenue is tied to transaction processing, with published rates starting at 1.6% of transaction value, positioned against local acquiring costs of up to 8% for foreign cards.

Transaction-based payment processing fees, with rates stated to start at 1.6%.

Traction

The company reports processing more than ZAR1 billion (about $61.5 million) in transactions in the first six months of 2026, and over ZAR250 million cumulatively as of the August 2025 seed announcement. Its site cites more than 50,000 transactions, over 1 billion processed, a 30% increase in customer profits, and checkout success rate improvements of 50%+ from local-currency payment. Named customers include Singita, Safari.com, Londolozi, The Capital, Thornybush, Arathusa Safari Lodge and Madekwe.

Latest developments

In August 2026 TurnStay reported processing more than ZAR1 billion (approximately $61.5 million) in transactions in the first six months of 2026 and said it was preparing a Series A round to support expansion across Africa, with growing activity in Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana.