South Africa’s PayShap instant payments system has passed six million registered users and 905 million transactions since its 2023 launch, operator PayInc said on Thursday – even as the system’s owners acknowledged that costs and inconsistent bank user experiences are slowing adoption.

The disclosure, coming after the inaugural PayShap Accelerate Acceptance Conference held last week, signals a shift in tone from PayInc.

After three years dominated by peer-to-peer transfers, the operator is now formally pivoting PayShap towards merchant payments and e-commerce – and the cost and friction problems that critics have flagged since launch are being acknowledged.

“PayShap started with peer-to-peer payments, but the focus now is on merchant payments, e-commerce, mobile payments and broader ecosystem enablement,” said Israel Skosana, PayInc’s chief product and scheme officer, in a statement.

“Reducing the cost of doing payments and ensuring seamless, consistent user experiences across banking channels are critical to unlocking the full potential of instant payments. These are areas where collaboration across the ecosystem will be essential.”

The transaction volume jump is real. In a December 2025 analysis, Finch Technologies co-founder Michael Bowren and Slant CEO Simon Anderssen reported that PayShap had processed 461 million transactions worth R403-billion since launch.

Near doubling

So, the 905 million figure represents a near-doubling in roughly five months – meaningful growth, even if the user base remains small relative to comparable schemes in other emerging markets. India’s PhonePe alone now adds a million users every six days; PayShap’s three-year total of six million is broadly equivalent to PhonePe’s growth over five weeks.

The cost criticisms PayInc is now addressing are not new. Bowren and Anderssen wrote in December that PayShap fees of “over R50 for larger transfers” risked defeating the system’s financial inclusion mandate, and that USSD access – critical for informal traders without smartphones – remained unavailable. The big retail banks that own PayInc have little incentive to promote a low-cost rail aggressively. As a result, PayShap’s relatively slow adoption is arguably rooted in the conflict of interest of bank ownership of a rail designed to lower payment fees.

Read: High fees keep PayShap stuck in first gear

That dynamic shifted materially in late 2025 when PayInc rebranded from BankservAfrica and the South African Reserve Bank took a 50% interest in the operator. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana subsequently confirmed in the 2026 budget speech that PayInc would serve as the open, shared digital payments infrastructure for South Africa, supporting interoperability across providers. The Reserve Bank backing has put the merchant push on a different footing.

PayShap is not entering an empty market: Yoco, SnapScan, Zapper, Ozow and the established card networks already dominate merchant acceptance.

Enoch Malisa, PayInc’s head of business development, said the real measure of success will be participation by those in the informal economy.

“Driving real acceptance and building everyday demand for PayShap is the next milestone. The real measure of success is whether township retailers and underserved communities are meaningfully participating in digital payments today. That is where the industry’s focus now needs to shift,” he said.

Read: The conflict of interest at the heart of PayShap’s slow adoption

Whether the merchant pivot succeeds will depend largely on what PayInc and the Reserve Bank can extract from the participating banks – the same institutions whose pricing has, by PayInc’s own admission, been holding the system back. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media