PayShap, South Africa’s first low value, interbank, real-time digital payments service, has been launched in the country. It is currently available at four participating banks in South Africa, namely Absa, FNB, Nedbank and Standard Bank with more banks expected to go live in the coming months.
“Widely anticipated in the market and global payments community since its journey kicked off in 2017, we are extremely pleased to announce that PayShap is officially live,” says Mpho Sadiki, Head of Real-time Payments at BankservAfrica.
With no waiting periods, South African bank account holders can now easily pay and receive money (up to R3000 per transaction) instantly, between participating banks, without sharing bank account details. “While the focus at launch is on person-to-person payments, every South African, including small business owners and merchants to commercial businesses, stand to benefit from this service which becomes a viable alternative to cash – from reimbursing friends or family, to paying for items on community marketplaces, hair salons, paying for home maintenance services, car washes, restaurants and transportation,” says Sadiki.
PayShap is not a standalone app and is accessed through existing banking channels only. “At launch, PayShap will be automat.ically accessible through bank channels such as mobile banking and internet banking. We anticipate that in the future, banks will innovate and opt to enable additional digital access channels,” says Sadiki.
PayShap will be released to the market in two stages. The first leg will see 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 cellphone number (ShapID). The second leg, will introduce an additional request-to-pay function which will make it possible for a person to initiate a request for payment and receive money securely and immediately in their bank account.
“We are all excited to witness the evolution of payments in South Africa that will be delivered through this next-generation digital payments service delivers,” concludes Sadiki.