South Africa’s real-time payments landscape is transforming, with PayShap leading the charge.
Built on the Rapid Payments Programme (RPP) rails, PayShap has emerged as a key product driving digital transactions, fostering financial inclusion, and accelerating the country’s shift towards a digital economy.
“Since its launch on March 13, 2023, PayShap has seen phenomenal growth, with transaction volumes increasing by over 1000% between December 2023 and December 2024 alone,” says Israel Skosana, chief product and scheme officer at BankservAfrica. “This highlights PayShap’s role in modernising South Africa’s payments landscape, offering a fast, secure, and cost-effective alternative to traditional methods, while driving real-time payments adoption.”
Globally, real-time payment systems are transforming economies. According to the 2024 ‘Prime Time for Real-Time’ report by ACI Worldwide, faster payments volumes grew by 42,2% year-on-year in 2023, with a projected 16,7% CAGR through 2028.
While adoption patterns differ across markets, examples like India’s UPI and Brazil’s Pix demonstrate the potential of real-time payments to reshape financial ecosystems.
PayShap’s progress reflects South Africa’s unique market conditions and user adoption trends, underscoring the importance of continued industry collaboration.
PayShap: a product leveraging the power of RPP rails
While PayShap is often seen as synonymous with real-time payments in South Africa, it is important to differentiate it from the underlying Rapid Payments Programme (RPP):
- RPP is the foundational payments infrastructure—the rails enable instant, interoperable transactions across the banking sector.
- PayShap is a product that runs on RPP, designed to bring real-time payments to consumers and businesses in a simple, secure, and accessible way.
“As the scheme manager, we are pleased with PayShap’s strong operational performance, marked by stability, high availability, and growing consumer adoption,” says Skosana. “With four more banks set to go live this year, we remain committed to driving innovation and expanding access to real-time payments across South Africa.”
Shaping the future of digital payments
PayShap is expanding its reach with the introduction of PayShap Request, a new feature that empowers individuals, businesses, and informal traders to initiate payment requests, enhancing control and flexibility in digital transactions.
“We anticipate the introduction of innovative real-time payment use cases with PayShap Request, enabling users to request and complete payments seamlessly across various platforms,” says Anton van der Merwe, head of scheme for PayShap at BankservAfrica.
Additionally, PayShap’s proxy-enabled payments simplify digital transactions by allowing users to link their bank accounts to easy-to-remember identifiers, such as their cellphone number, instead of complex bank account details.
Since its launch in 2023, PayShap has around 4,5-million registered ShapID proxies, making transactions faster, more convenient and less prone to errors.
“Proxy-enabled payments are a game-changer in real-time transactions,” says Skosana. “By eliminating the need for complex account details, they enhance accessibility, drive financial inclusion and support seamless interoperability across banks.”
Building a scalable and resilient payments ecosystem
BankservAfrica continues to invest in its rapid payments infrastructure to support the growing demand for real-time transactions, ensuring scalability, security and high availability.
“We are committed to strengthening the RPP rails that power PayShap and other future real-time payments innovations,” says Skosana. “By continuous enhancements and collaborating with banks, fintechs, regulators, and other industry players, we aim to accelerate the shift from cash and shape a modern, inclusive digital payments ecosystem.”
As PayShap evolves, the introduction of QR codes as an additional way to pay and other industry-driven innovations will further expand its usability.
“With these enhancements, we remain aligned with the South African Reserve Bank’s Vision 2025 and its Digital Payments Roadmap, reinforcing our commitment to advancing real-time, interoperable payment solutions,” concludes Skosana.