The Reserve Bank is testing a new payment system in South Africa that will be launched this year

In South Africa, BankservAfrica is now developing a new rapid payments programme (RPP) infrastructure.

The new method is part of the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Vision 2025, which aims to simplify and make real-time payments more economical and efficient – even for individuals who do not have a bank account.

To summarise, it will let consumers to make nearly immediate payments by utilising simple identifiers such as a cellphone number or email address.

According to Daily Investor, BankservAfrica intends the RPP, which will be introduced under the brand Payshap, to become the primary e-payment option in South Africa immediately after debut.

“It will deepen financial inclusion and contribute to building a safe, reliable, and efficient National Payments System,” said BankservAfrica.

Jan Pilbauer, CEO of BankservAfrica, stated that the new method will eliminate the requirement for a consumer to provide a bank account number or a branch code in order to transfer money.

The initiative is set to launch later this year.

The SARB stated in June 2022 that the RPP, when fully implemented, would support retail payment use cases and that it was working with the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) and BankservAfrica to develop the legal construct, namely the formation of the payment clearing house and the establishment of the RPP scheme.

How it will hold up

The Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) has calculated how new and old payment systems in the country compare to worldwide standards.

South Africa, according to the organisation, is at the forefront of implementing global payment standards and is a key contributor to those standards.

According to Mariekie Mincher, PASA’s manager of operations support, the new RPP software (PayShap) will use the ISO 20022 universal standard.

ISO 20022 is a worldwide standard for financial transaction messaging that the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) just accepted in November of last year.

According to the central bank, ISO 20022 will offer a global harmonised message exchange method for payment, allowing for more, higher-quality data in payment processing and settlements.

“Under the leadership of BankservAfrica and PASA, this industry-led initiative promises a cost-effective instant payment service across banks, a proxy service to embed user banking details (e.g. the ability to pay to a mobile number), a request-to-pay service, and support for several known retail payment use cases,” said PASA.

“Importantly, the new system will provide rapid payment functionality to unbanked consumers who would benefit from digital payment facilities. Of course, banked consumers will also enjoy greater convenience and easier transacting with the introduction of Payshap.”