There has been strong growth in the total volume of payment transactions settled in the SAMOS system that is owned by the South African Reserve Bank and facilitates the settlement of domestic payment transactions. Growth in transaction values has been much more modest however. Electronic funds transactions represent the majority of transaction values, followed by credit and debit card transactions. The volume of transactions utilizing South Africa’s instant retail payment offering, known as the real-time clearing (RTC) system and PayShap, which is a low-value, real-time (instant) interbank payment offering have increased dramatically, although they still only represents a small share of total transaction values.
Footnote
EFT values are the average of debits and credits. The break in data between 2017 and 2019 reflects non-availability of data from SARB. The payment authority did not respond to our data request. SASWITCH represent ATM transactions.
