A new industry report from the FinTech Association of South Africa (Finasa) has found that a decade of fintech innovation has transformed the landscape for connected, urban South Africans – but left informal economies and township merchants largely behind.

South Africa’s fintech sector has had a remarkable decade. New digital banks have grown to millions of customers, payment rails now move money in real time and consumer choice has never been wider. By almost every measure the industry uses to judge itself, it has succeeded.

The problem is that those measures may be the wrong ones.

That is the conclusion running through Finasa’s inaugural Industry Spotlight report, published last week, which brings together three voices from across the ecosystem – Paymentology CEO Jeff Parker, GoTyme Bank (formerly TymeBank) CEO Cheslyn Jacobs, and ePocket founders Mpho Tlhape and Karabo Seduma – to examine where the sector stands and, more pointedly, who it has left behind.

The innovations are not in doubt. But step outside the formal economy and the picture shifts. In township and informal markets – where a significant share of South Africa’s economic activity actually takes place – cash remains dominant. Digital payments exist; they simply haven’t displaced cash, because in many communities they aren’t yet easier, cheaper or more trusted.

Contextually foreign

ePocket’s founders said the industry has built financial services and expected communities to adapt to them, rather than the other way around. The result is products that are technically functional but contextually foreign.

They also point to a fundamental mismatch in where investment has gone – consumer-facing products have attracted attention and capital, while merchant enablement has been neglected. Since consumers can only go cashless when the merchants they buy from accept digital payments, the industry may have been solving the problem from the wrong end.

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Despite their different vantage points, all three agreed that the industry has conflated innovation with inclusion and access with participation. Paymentology’s Parker argued that South Africa’s problem is adoption, not technology – the rails exist, but millions of consumers and small businesses still rely on cash.

Jacobs acknowledged that GoTyme, for all its consumer growth, has not meaningfully cracked small business banking, describing the SME segment as underserved due to regulatory complexity, onboarding friction and competing institutional priorities.

ePocket went further in the report, arguing that the industry has routinely overlooked the human layer entirely – onboarding, local-language support and community trust-building – in favour of products that are innovative on paper but under-used in practice.

Finasa’s report found millions of South Africans hold accounts or can technically reach digital payments – but still don’t use them. The next phase of digital finance, the report argued, will be judged not by what gets built, but by who gets brought along. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media