The Black Friday phenomenon has well and truly taken hold in South Africa, as demonstrated by the increase in payment transactions processed by the country’s banks in 2019, compared to the same Black Friday period in 2018.
Mpho Sadiki, executive: card, payments and transactional acceptance at Nedbank, says that over the recent Black Friday week, the bank saw a massive 27% year-on-year increase in transaction volumes across all its transactional channels, with the greatest rise in transactions by far coming from online purchases.
“As retailers increasingly extend their Black Friday offerings beyond the actual day, we are seeing steady growth in transaction volumes and overall value every year,” Sadiki explains. “This year was no exception and, while the volume of Nedbank-facilitated transactions on Black Friday itself went up, we also saw a 45% growth in transaction volumes in the week leading up to the Friday, and the weekend after it.”
According to Sadiki, this overall growth in transactions was mirrored by an equally impressive rise in the number of transactions per second processed by Nedbank, particularly over the Black Friday Weekend.
“At the peak of Black Friday buying activity, Nedbank processed 632 transactions per second,” he points out. “The fact that our clients encountered no significant system errors or failures, despite these very high transaction volumes, offers proof of the stability and reliability of Nedbank’s payments infrastructure.”
Sadiki says that the average amount per Black Friday transaction completed by Nedbank clients was just over R800, with the biggest spenders falling into the 24- to 36-year-old age bracket, followed by the 37- to 48-year-old group. In fact, consumers aged 24 to 48 accounted for more than half of the total amount spent by Nedbank clients over the Black Friday period.
“As Black Friday becomes increasingly entrenched as part of South Africa’s pre-festive season shopping culture, it is essential that the country’s financial institutions ensure they have the robust payments systems in place to effectively handle the sudden massive spike in transactions that will undoubtedly occur near the end of every November in the future,” Sadiki says.
“The ability of the Nedbank payments and transactional systems to effortlessly handle the somewhat unexpected massive increase in volumes this year is testament to the success we are achieving in delivering trusted and reliable client experiences through our ongoing strategic investment into digital banking technologies.”