Author: Lerato Lamola

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payment options have strutted onto South Africa’s financial runway with the swagger of innovation—offering interest-free instalments, bypassing traditional credit checks, and boasting sleek user interfaces that make old-school lay-bys look prehistoric. For consumers, it feels like a dream: swipe today, split it tomorrow. For platforms, it’s fintech gold. But beneath the surface of this frictionless façade lies a regulatory grey zone thick with risk, ambiguity, and potential litigation. Is BNPL empowering consumers, or quietly indebting them? And when the legal hammer finally drops, who’s left holding the bill?  BNPL services allow consumers to make purchases…

On 18 April 2024, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) published its digital payments roadmap. The document entitled Digital Payments Roadmap: Towards Inclusive, Accessible, Effective and Sustainable Digital Payments in South Africa, sets out a 17-action item plan that the SARB has for tackling identified obstacles, barriers and challenges to the adoption of an increase and effective use of digital payment in South Africa. This Roadmap follows from the National Payment System Framework and Strategy Vision 2025: Action Plan published in March 2018. The benefits of digital payments are identified to be safety, convenience, cost-effectiveness, women empowerment, business opportunities, and…