PayShap launches in South Africa to enable real-time digital payments

PayShap, an interbank, and real-time digital payments service built as a collaborative effort between Bankserv, a clearing house owned by South African commercial banks, and the South Africa Reserve Bank ,will launch for the general public on Monday, March 13.

PayShap claims to offer an easy and safe way for banked and underbanked consumers to make low-value (initially up to R3000) payments to one another in real-time irrespective of where they bank.

“The launch of PayShap is a major milestone for South Africa’s payments modernisation journey. Payshap aims to reduce consumers’ dependency on cash and move to a more digital payments future,” said Mpho Sadiki, head of real-time payments at BankservAfrica.

The rollout of PayShap will be in two stages, with the first involving the launch of the PayShap instant clearing feature that gives the option to pay-by-account (using account details) or pay-by-proxy (using a unique identifier such as a cell phone number (ShapID).

The second stage will introduce an additional request-to-pay function which makes it possible for a person to request payment and receive money securely and immediately in their bank account.

PayShap will be available to everyone as long as both the payer and recipient’s banks both offer the service.

“The launch of PayShap is a major milestone for South Africa’s payments modernisation journey. Payshap aims to reduce consumers’ dependency on cash and move to a more digital payments future,” added Sadiki. 

“It’s the year of big change for payments in Mzanzi and we believe that PayShap will accelerate the pace of digital payments adoption for all South Africans.”