AO expands into the UK buy-now-pay-later market with refund software project

AO’s early international software work included an engagement with a UK-based buy-now-pay-later business that needed additional development capacity. Working from South Africa, AO Software contributed the people and expertise to deliver a technically complex refund module within the customer’s existing platform.

The assignment focused on the part of the payment lifecycle that follows when a purchase needs to be refunded. Within a buy-now-pay-later service, that functionality had to work within the customer’s payment and repayment processes, making it a demanding piece of development.

AO’s developers worked within the customer’s wider delivery effort, taking responsibility for the agreed refund functionality. The engagement combined additional capacity with delivery of a defined software component, while the customer retained ownership of the broader platform and programme.

The project extended AO’s experience in payments technology and its reach into the UK market. It demonstrated how a South African development team could support an overseas customer with specialist skills and focused delivery.

It also illustrated an approach that would later become part of AO Connect: helping customers address capacity gaps by bringing skilled people into an existing team for a specific requirement. Delivered through AO Software, the engagement formed an early example of matching development expertise to a customer’s immediate delivery needs.