When a payment arrives within seconds, customers rarely think about what happens behind the scenes of the transaction. But South Africa is rebuilding that hidden machinery, changing both the rules for who can participate in payments and the infrastructure used to move money.
At a Standard Bank roundtable in Johannesburg on Wednesday, three payments executives outlined how new regulations, richer payment data, and faster cross-border rails are reshaping the industry.
A proposed activity-based regulatory model could give non-banks and fintechs more room to offer payment services directly, while initiatives in real-time cross-border payments and new payment standards are changing how those transactions are processed.
For fintechs, that creates more room to compete and a higher bar. Greater access will come with requirements around licensing, fraud controls, resilience, compliance, and data. That was the central theme of Standard Bank’s “Navigating the Evolving Payments Landscape” roundtable.
“The South African payments industry is experiencing the most significant regulatory transformation,” said Lesego Chauke, chief payments officer at Pay Inc., South Africa’s new national payments operator. “The question for organisations such as banks, corporates and fintechs is no longer whether the change is happening. It’s whether you are ready to benefit from it.”
