GoTyme Bank customers now originate about 26% of South Africa’s PayShap cellphone payments, the digital bank said on Thursday, as it challenged the rest of the industry to make instant payments free.
PayShap, run by PayInc (formerly BankservAfrica), lets people send money between banks instantly. Payments can be addressed to a cellphone number registered as a ShapID, so the sender doesn’t need the recipient’s account number. PayInc said in June that the system had passed one billion cumulative transactions and was processing more than 60 million a month.
GoTyme, which changed its name from TymeBank this year, said the number of its customers using PayShap had grown by more than 250% year on year. Almost 70% of payments made by its customers are now instant and free, it said. It estimates that customers save more than R150-million/year because qualifying instant payments carry no fee.
“We don’t want free instant payments to remain a GoTyme competitive advantage forever. We want the industry to copy us. Instant should be the standard, and we believe free should be the standard, too,” said CEO Cheslyn Jacobs. The bank released the figures at a media briefing in Johannesburg.
Fees have been a recurring complaint about PayShap, which launched in March 2023. PayInc acknowledged earlier this year that costs and inconsistent user experiences across banking apps were slowing adoption.
In a column for TechCentral in March, Jacobs argued that the big banks faced a conflict of interest, because promoting a low-cost payment rail eats into their own fee income. He said GoTyme’s app automatically routes payments through PayShap as the cheapest option — helping explain the strong take-up.
Plans for 2027
GoTyme said spending on its virtual cards had risen 240% year on year, including 65% growth in the most recent quarter. It also moved more than four million customers onto its new app this year.
The bank now has more than 13 million customers and expects to become South Africa’s third-largest bank by monthly active users by the first quarter of 2027. It did not say what data it used to rank banks by active users. Total income rose 25% to R2.72-billion and customer deposits 27% to R9.69-billion.
Its plans for 2027 include a credit card, more personal lending through its partnership with Sanlam and a new rewards programme. It is also building ways to give customers access to investments and digital assets, subject to regulatory and licensing approvals. — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
