South AfricaA mature market that keeps moving
South Africa is the most developed, best-banked payment market on the continent, home to more than 65 million people and a relatively young population. People are already comfortable with digital payments, but the way they pay keeps changing. A2A is closing in on cards, cash keeps losing ground and BNPL is becoming a serious contender. Amid these changes, a wave of new payment compliance and interoperability standards are coming in.
The way locals pay
Local payment methods to know
Online payments mix eCommerce 2026 projections
BNPL: Moving into the mainstream
South Africans are price-conscious shoppers, and many manage their money week to week rather than month to month. Lay-by has long reflected that reality, letting shoppers pay first and take their purchases home later. BNPL turns that idea around, and over the past few years, it has become one of the market’s biggest shifts: take it home now, pay over time.
Brands like Payflex and PayJustNow have become embedded in everyday shopping. More than half of eCommerce shoppers in South Africa have used BNPL at least once, and the trend is set to continue, with volumes expected to more than double by 2028, growing at a steady 37% every year.
For one merchant, 81% of Payflex buyers are new
Our data consistently shows that when merchants introduce BNPL alongside cards, cannibalization is minimal. When one of our cross-border retail merchants added Payflex alongside its existing card options, it reached 20% of the total transaction volume within five months, with the average Payflex basket running 61% higher than the average card basket. An impressive 81% of that volume came from shoppers who were new to the merchant, not existing cardholders switching over.
Capitec Pay: From bank account to checkout
Capitec has grown from a new bank in 2001 to South Africa’s largest by customer numbers, with more than 26 million customers today.
Capitec Pay, Capitec’s secure, card-free bank-to-bank online payment method, lets account holders pay directly from their bank account using nothing but a mobile number. There’s no card involved. And it’s also the only tokenizable alternative payment method in the market, meaning it supports one-click and recurring payments the same way a saved card does. For subscriptions and repeat purchases, that opens the door to customers who don’t have or use cards. Capitec Pay now accounts for around half of A2A transactions in South Africa.
26M+Capitec customers, the largest bank in South Africa by customer numbersThe Capitec ripple effect
Capitec Pay growth is influencing South Africa’s A2A landscape more broadly. We expect A2A to overtake credit cards in South Africa by 2027, climbing from 20% of volume in 2025 to almost 26% by 2028, while credit cards slip from 23% to close to 20% over the same stretch. Most of that growth is expected to run through Capitec Pay, but the rails underneath it are expanding too.
PayShap, South Africa’s real-time payment system, has moved beyond P2P transfers to support merchant payments as well, available 24/7. Its own share of the market is still small, but it’s a rail worth watching. And the QR+ standard, launched by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) in late 2025, is designed to bring different payment providers and rails together through a common QR framework. For consumers, that means paying through their preferred provider without needing to find a specific code. Together, PayShap and QR+ point to where South Africa’s interoperability story is heading.
Global merchants often ask why South Africa is one of the most innovative markets on the continent. Part of the answer is infrastructure. South Africa’s smartphone adoption rate is among the highest in Africa. Digital payments follow digital access, and South Africa has both. Part of it is its regulator. The forward-thinking SARB actively invests in frameworks that allow new payment methods to scale, creating a breeding ground for fresh ideas. South Africa’s payment mix is complex, the consumer is sophisticated and the landscape is moving quickly. But for those willing to do it properly, the opportunity is significant.
A more connected, more compliant market
South Africa’s infrastructure is catching up on both interoperability and compliance at once. QR+, the national payment code introduced by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) will allow customers to scan a store code using any participating banking or wallet app.
On the compliance side, South Africa’s exit from the FATF grey list in October 2025 eased some cross-border banking friction. But National Treasury is still tightening AML rules through 2027, so further changes are coming.
