Standard Bank has slashed PayShap transaction fees to a flat rate of just R2 for any amount transferred up to the R3 000 limit.
The move makes Standard Bank the second cheapest bank for instant payments powered by the PayShap payment rails, with TymeBank still leading the sector by charging no fees on PayShap transactions.
“On PayShap, Standard Bank has significantly reduced fees for customers making payments to recipients with active PayShap IDs. These transactions will carry a flat fee of R2/transaction, regardless of the amount,” Standard Bank said in a statement on Tuesday. The lower cost applies only when recipients have active PayShap IDs (ShapIDs).
When PayShap was introduced in 2023, Standard Bank charged its personal banking customers R10 for transactions up to R2 000 and R50 for those above R2 000, with a transfer limit of R3 000.
According to the bank’s 2025 pricing guide, personal banking customers are charged R1 for PayShap transactions below R100, R7 for those below R2 000 and R50 for those above R2 000. The new R2 flat fee will be in effect from 1 January 2026.
Standard Bank’s decision to slash PayShap fees forms part of its overall pricing update for 2026. It said it has tried to keep pricing across most of its products the same “in recognition of the financial pressures many South Africans continue to face”.
As it stands, each of South Africa’s banks chooses how much to charge for PayShap transactions as well as how their customers interface with the service through channels like online banking and mobile apps.
Fragmented approach
The challenge with this fragmented approach towards PayShap, as explained by Wiza Jalakasi, director of Africa expansion and market development at Ebanx during a panel discussion at this years’ Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, is that it hampers adoption by failing to offer a standardised user experience that is relatable across platforms.
“The underlying rails are the same, but each bank has decided to deploy a unique user interface. It impacts adoption because when you say ‘PayShap’, users are supposed to have the same experience no matter which touchpoint they used to access the service. But they don’t,” said Jalakasi.
Read: High fees keep PayShap stuck in first gear
The sector’s fragmented approach to pricing has had a similar effect. At the launch of Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Bank’s Payments in Africa report in September, Nthabiseng Mohale, head of interbank and domestic payments at Standard Bank, told TechCentral that the banking sector needs to review PayShap pricing strategies to ensure that its goals of financial inclusion and digital adoption are being met.
“Each bank has its own pricing strategy, and that is a problem because, from an inclusion perspective, PayShap was meant to be cost effective – that was one of its pillars. As the banking industry, we need to review our pricing strategy – how we charge the end user to access or initiate a PayShap payment – because if PayShap costs the same as real-time clearing, for example, then why would people use it?” asked Mohale.
Countries such as India and Brazil approach the pricing of their PayShap equivalents – UPI in India and Pix in Brazil – through regulation. The main reason pricing is regulated in these markets is to ensure costs remain low to encourage adoption. Person-to-person transactions are free on UPI and Pix, while the fees banks charge to merchants are regulated by the central banks of both countries.
TymeBank announced the incorporation of PayShap payment rails into its banking platform in August 2023, five months after PayShap was launched. The bank’s then chief commercial officer and now CEO, Cheslyn Jacobs, said the move to make PayShap payments free was aimed at driving financial inclusion among the bank’s customers. TymeBank uses its low-cost digital platform, which includes not owning any physical branches, to provide services to unbanked and underbanked South Africans.
Read: TymeBank makes PayShap transactions free
“By making PayShap to mobile numbers free, we are giving all our individual and business customers the opportunity to enjoy fully the benefits of real-time digital payments across banks without having to worry about transaction fees,” said Jacobs. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
Get breaking news from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Sign up here.
