“Can I Just PayShap You?” What South Africa’s Instant Payments Signal

A mobile hairdresser finishes a client’s braids in a Soweto living room. The client reaches for her phone rather than her purse. “Can I just PayShap you?” A few taps later, using nothing more than the hairdresser’s cellphone number, the money is in her account. No card machine, no waiting days for an EFT to clear, no counting change.

Five years ago, that exchange would have been unusual. Today it’s becoming familiar, and not only in big cities. South Africans are increasingly comfortable sending instant payments to each other and to small businesses, even though cash remains widely used.

In the One Like Insights section, Signals are early indicators of change that are worth noticing before they become obvious. The growth of PayShap is one of them. It’s a quiet shift in how money moves, with practical implications for how small businesses get paid.

One Like insight: When getting paid becomes instant, so do customers’ expectations of every other part of the transaction.

The numbers behind the shift

PayShap launched in March 2023 as part of the South African Reserve Bank’s Rapid Payments Programme. It’s run by PayInc, formerly BankservAfrica, and lets people send money instantly between participating banks, at any time of day, using a cellphone number or a short identifier instead of full bank details.

Growth was slow at first, then rapid. By May 2026, PayInc reported that PayShap had passed six million registered users and 905 million transactions since launch. An industry analysis just five months earlier had put the total at around 461 million transactions, so volumes have roughly doubled in under half a year. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana also confirmed in the 2026 Budget speech that PayInc would serve as shared digital payments infrastructure for the country.

There are real limitations. The same reporting noted that fees on payments above R50 have been criticised for holding back wider use, and that the experience varies between banks. Cash remains deeply embedded in the South African economy. And PayInc is now shifting its focus towards merchant and online payments, which means the business side of PayShap is still developing.

That combination, rapid adoption with unfinished infrastructure, is exactly what makes it a signal rather than a settled trend. The direction is clear. The details are still moving.

What this signals for small businesses

For small businesses, the rise of instant payments points to a few practical shifts.

Getting paid can be faster. Mobile service providers, tradespeople and market traders can be paid on the spot without a card machine, and the money is available immediately. For businesses that live close to the edge on cash flow, as we explored in How Many Days Could Your Business Survive?, shortening the gap between finishing a job and receiving payment matters.

Customers will expect the option. As more people get used to instant payments, a business that only accepts cash or slow transfers may start to feel inconvenient. As we saw in Why People Spend More When It Doesn’t Feel Like Paying, making payment easier also tends to remove a quiet barrier to buying.

Fraud risks change shape. Instant, irreversible payments are attractive to fraudsters too. Fake proof-of-payment screenshots and urgent “I’ve just paid you” messages are familiar scams. Businesses need a simple habit of checking that money has actually arrived in their account before handing over goods.

Getting ready

You don’t need to overhaul your payment systems to respond to this signal. Start by checking whether your business bank account can receive PayShap payments, what your bank charges, and whether you can set up a simple identifier customers can use. Add it to your invoices, quotes, website and WhatsApp messages, so customers know it’s an option.

Then agree a simple rule with your team: no goods leave and no job is signed off until the money is confirmed in the account, not just on a customer’s screen. That one habit protects you from the most common instant-payment scams.

A few questions can help:

• Can our customers pay us instantly, and do they know they can?
• How long, on average, does it take between finishing a job and receiving payment?
• What do our bank’s instant-payment fees look like at our typical transaction sizes?
• How do we confirm that a payment has really arrived before releasing goods?

Which brings us back to the hairdresser in the Soweto living room. She didn’t need a card machine, a merchant account or a payment app. She needed a bank account set up for instant payments and a cellphone number her clients already had. That’s what makes this signal worth noticing: for many small businesses, the tools for getting paid faster are already within reach.

Sources

1. TechCentral, “Three years in, PayShap pivots to merchants”, May 2026. Source of the six million users and 905 million transactions, the December 2025 figure of 461 million, the Budget speech reference and the fee criticism.