Mr Tim Masela, the Head of the National Payment System Department at the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), spoke today of their vision for the future of banking in South Africa called Vision 2030.
Masela was speaking at the launch of the newly formed Association of South African Payment Providers or ASAPP this morning in Sandton.
He said that late last year, SARB started the process for the planning of their vision on a future horizon currently, termed Vision 2030+.
Commitment to Inclusion
He made a commitment to the gathering of some of the top Fintech payment companies in SA that non-banks are to be included in the rapid settlement system as long as the entities meet the regulatory requirements and that this is being investigated.
“There needs to be appropriate criteria for entry and authorisation”” Masela commented.
These developments apparently fall under the scope of the new Vision 2030+ and will see the introduction of new drive towards building the concept of a cash free society, according to Masela.
“Because we’re not sure whether we’re going to have a 5-year vision in 2025, he said, “or we could have a longer vision with a checkpoint somewhere”. “So we currently call it Vision 2030+.
Masela says that while they understand that things move fast in the payment system, and so a shorter vision may be ideal. However, some budgets and investments in this space take longer to realise them so they are preferring a longer term view.
Slow Pace in Developments Holding Industry Back
The key concerns from the non-bank payment providers is that developments within the banking sector in the last 30 years has been tediously slow with the only new developments being Debi-check and Payshap, with almost zero adoption of the Payshap payments system so far.
The SARB has set a checkpoint in 2028, with Masela commenting that “We’ll see how that turns out”. “But …. it seems most of the goals in Vision 2025 are priorities.
“We have ideas on how that can be done and we’ll share them with you for your insights, he said.
Addressing the payment tech groups, Masela commented that “you really come with innovative ideas and we believe we will benefit from that, so we are quite excited about what lies ahead we are excited about the challenges that are facing us” he stated.
“Because we recognise the role of the non-bank that is fundamentally the payment system, we believe that we (SARB) should play our part and be enabling in ensuring that you can come into the system and indeed take your role of ensuring that you facilitate convenience and all the good things relating to cross-key and access to digital payment”, Masela concludes.