South Africa’s Payment System Is Changing. Will Ordinary South Africans Feel the Difference?

South Africa just quietly made one of the most important changes to its financial system in years, and most South Africans will probably never notice it.

On 11 August, the South African Reserve Bank began a fundamental change in how our National Payment System is managed.

For three decades, the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) has played a central role in managing the system. Now, as part of a broader modernisation programme, those functions are moving to the SARB and PayInc.

It sounds technical, but the real test of this reform will eventually happen somewhere much more familiar.

At a spaza shop counter. In a taxi. Inside a small business, trying to accept a payment without giving away too much of an already thin margin. In the hands of an entrepreneur trying to participate in the digital economy.

From 11 August, responsibility for rules and standards, as well as for the licensing, authorisation, and registration of payment institutions, moved to the SARB. PayInc will assume responsibility for clearing arrangements, including EFT credit and debit, Authenticated Collections, PayShap and real-time clearing from 2 September.

For me, however, changing who governs the rails is only the beginning.

South Africa remains heavily reliant on cash. The SARB’s broader Payments Ecosystem Modernisation programme recognises that we need digital payments that are fast, affordable, easy to use and widely available, while opening the ecosystem to broader participation and innovation.

Those are ambitions I strongly support. But five years from now, how should we judge whether this modernisation actually worked?

I’d ask some very practical questions: Did accepting digital payments become cheaper for the spaza owner? Can fintechs and non-bank providers participate more easily? Did interoperability improve? Did greater competition produce better outcomes for customers? Did PayShap become part of how ordinary South Africans move money every day? And did we make it economically worthwhile for more cash-heavy micro-merchants to participate in the digital economy?

I’ve spent much of my career inside banking, and today at Lesaka, I experience this system from the fintech side. Both perspectives have taught me the same thing.

Financial infrastructure only succeeds when the person at the edge of the system feels the benefit. A regulatory reform can be perfectly designed on paper and still mean very little to the merchant behind the counter.

So, I welcome the direction the SARB is taking.

A stronger regulatory architecture, broader participation and infrastructure designed around a more inclusive payments ecosystem can create the conditions for something significant.

Now, industry, regulators, banks and fintechs have to turn those conditions into outcomes.

Five years from now, what evidence would convince you that modernising South Africa’s National Payment System actually worked for ordinary South Africans? Lincoln Mali

President, Association of South African Payment Providers (ASAPP)