South Africa’s identity and payments shift that most businesses missed

While attention was fixed on AI last year, South Africa made its biggest leap in digital identity and payments in more than a decade.

These were not isolated upgrades. Together they laid the foundation for how people will verify themselves, move money and access services in the years ahead.

Most businesses have not connected the dots yet. But they need to.

Here’s what happened in 2025, and why it matters.

1. The Reserve Bank restructured South Africa’s payment architecture

The South African Reserve Bank made two moves that reset who gets to participate in the payment ecosystem and how transactions will work in future.

First, it opened the National Payment System to non-bank fintechs. The draft directive and draft exemption notice set out risk, AML, cybersecurity and client-fund rules that allow non-banks to issue e-wallets, run instant payments and operate directly on national rails without becoming banks.

This shifts South Africa away from a bank-only model and creates real competition and flexibility.

Second, the Reserve Bank launched the payments ecosystem modernisation programme. It focuses on upgrading RTGS (real-time gross settlement), expanding faster payment options like PayShap and building a universal digital financial ID. The goal is a “cash-smart society” where digital payments are simple, low cost and as routine as sending a text.

The message is clear: identity won’t sit beside South Africa’s transaction systems – it will run through them.

2. Home affairs began rebuilding South Africa’s identity layer

At the same time, the department of home affairs began executing a major digital overhaul under its 2025-2030 plan.

The department is moving from paper-heavy, manual processes to fully digital, automated services. Citizens will apply online for IDs, passports and visas using facial recognition and biometrics. Travel authorisations will be processed instantly unless risk flags trigger review. Document collection will shift away from physical branches.

The centrepiece is a new biometric digital identity system developed with the Reserve Bank for secure, online, cross-sector verification. The home affairs from Home vision aims to cut in-person visits drastically, with digital IDs expected in mobile wallets by 2028 or 2029.

This isn’t routine modernisation; it’s the foundation of a national, online-verifiable identity that business will rely on.

3. MyMzansi – a connected identity, payments and data exchange

The MyMzansi Digital Transformation Roadmap is the first blueprint that ties all of this together. Led by the Digital Services Unit, it sets out how South Africa will build digital public infrastructure between 2025 and 2030.

• Phase 1, from 2025 to 2027, focuses on piloting a single digital identity, a national data exchange layer, a digital payments system, a wallet for verifiable credentials, and user-facing platforms like the MyMzansi app and a central digital government portal.
• Phase 2, from 2027 to 2030, expands these tools into healthcare, education and other sectors.

Identity, data exchange and payments are now being designed as a single interoperable framework – replacing the old pattern of siloed systems patched together years later.

That means businesses will increasingly design around a trusted digital identity that can move across institutions.

4. Why this time is different

Anyone who has watched government tech projects over the years knows the pattern. Departments run in parallel, build overlapping systems and struggle to integrate. The result is delay and duplication.

This year broke that pattern.

The Reserve Bank, home affairs and the Digital Services Unit are working on aligned pieces of a shared architecture. The Reserve Bank is modernising transaction rails and creating a financial identifier. Home affairs is upgrading biometric identity for secure online use. MyMzansi defines how identity, payments and data exchange plug together at national scale.

Alignment is rare in government. When it happens, momentum builds fast. Businesses that assume this will move slowly are reading the moment incorrectly.

Most enterprises will not connect to every new rail or trust framework themselves. They will rely on integrated identity providers that absorb regulatory and technical complexity and provide a consistent identity layer for onboarding, transactions and compliance. That is the layer Contactable operates in.

This shift affects every organisation that verifies identity, moves money or carries risk. As national rails mature, bespoke KYC (“know your customer”) and verification stacks will start to look slow, expensive and brittle. For leadership teams, the question is whether identity remains a compliance function or becomes infrastructure to compete on.

The real question for leadership teams in 2026 is simple: if 2025 built the new rails, will you keep treating identity as paperwork – or start treating it as infrastructure, plugged in via specialised identity providers and embedded into every real use case?

About Contactable
Contactable is an integrated identity platform, helping enterprises turn trust into a growth advantage. Through a single integration, it unifies identity, compliance and workflow across the customer journey – reducing complexity, strengthening assurance and enabling seamless digital experiences at scale. Visit contactable.co.za or follow the company on LinkedIn.

• The author, Shaun Strydom, is CEO of Contactable. This article was first published on Contactable’s thought leadership blog
• Read more articles by Contactable on TechCentral
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