With just nine months to go until the March 2026 deadline set by the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) for the industry-wide replacement of magstripe fleet cards, Payment24 in close partnership with its partners, is already prepared.
With traditional magnetic stripe fleet cards increasingly targeted by fraud syndicates, the industry faces an urgent need to modernise. Fraud losses in the fleet sector topped R40-million in a single year, with some operators seeing fuel spend leakage as high as 12%. Between 2020 and 2024 alone, counterfeit-related fraud in the industry rose by 400%.
“The industry has known the shift away from magstripe was coming, but few were prepared. We made it our priority to invest early, build smart, and partner strategically,” says Shadab Rahil, CEO at Payment24. “Our goal was never just to be compliant, it was to give our customers a future-ready platform that makes their lives easier, more secure, and more connected. And that’s exactly what this partnership delivers.”
Payment24 and its partner Standard Bank are delivering the next generation of secure, scalable, and cross-border-ready fleet payment infrastructure.
“Fleet cards were the last man standing in the payments space,” says Justin Thomas, managing executive: head fleet management and card at Standard Bank Group. “Credit and debit cards moved to EMV more than 15 years ago. Criminals have been targeting magstripe fleet cards ever since and the numbers speak for themselves. That’s why we’ve taken a leadership position in migrating the industry forward.”