On 16 October 2026, Pradeep Maharaj told a media roundtable that South Africa will open its national payments system to non-bank operators. Retailers, telecoms firms and fintechs are on the list.
Maharaj is executive director of the Reserve Bank's payments programme, known as PEM. His remarks were reported by Reuters and carried by Newsday and Sunday World. The Reserve Bank has, in effect, said the banks' hold on direct access is ending.
What the Reserve Bank has said, and what it has not
The timetable is specific. Rules on permitted payment activities and exemptions are due by November. Non-bank operators are expected to go live around March 2027, after licensing. A mid-year launch follows testing.
That is a short runway for a boardroom. It is five months to the first go-live, measured from today, 19 October.
Much remains open. The rules are not yet published. The reports do not tell us which operators will be licensed, what they will charge, or how quickly any of them will reach scale. Anyone who claims to know is guessing.
Why this is a group decision
A large retailer or consumer brand may well buy payments in pieces, with one supplier for card acceptance, another for online checkout, another for a loyalty wallet and another for settlement. Where that is true, each contract was probably signed to solve a problem of its day, often by a different business unit. The reports do not describe how any particular group buys, so that is a question each board should put to itself.
For years, banks sat in front of the system and that sprawl was tolerable. Access to the rails ran through them, so the choices beneath were limited. If non-bank operators can reach the system directly, the structure changes. A retailer or a telecoms group may become a payments operator in its own right. Its competitors may do the same.
That makes payments a question for the CEO and CFO, not for a procurement team. Three questions stand out.
- Does the group want to sit closer to the rails, or buy access from someone who does?
- Which suppliers add capability the group cannot get elsewhere, and which only pass the same transactions along?
- Who inside the group is accountable for payment cost and performance as a single line?
Many groups may struggle to answer the third question today. Until they can, they cannot answer the first two.
The cost of waiting for the rules
There is a reasonable case for patience. The final rules are not out, and moving early on an unsettled framework carries risk. Nobody should sign a long contract on guesswork.
But patience is different from drift. Contracts roll over quietly. A supplier renewed for three years in the first quarter of 2027 will still be in place when the new operators are competing for the same retailers. Groups that wait for certainty may find the choice has been made for them by the renewal calendar.
The sensible move is an audit, not a bet. List every payments supplier across the group. Note the end date and exit terms of each contract. Mark which ones overlap. That work costs little and it is useful whatever the November rules say.
What a connected payments estate buys
Payments do not stand alone. They sit between checkout, stock, delivery and the customer record. A decline at the till, a failed refund or a delayed settlement shows up in customer complaints, in cash flow and in the data the group relies on to understand its shoppers. When four suppliers each own a slice, nobody owns the whole result.
A group with one accountable partner across its payments, commerce and customer data can see that whole result. It can compare the cost of a transaction across channels. It can switch a supplier without rebuilding the checkout. And it can take advantage of new operators on its own terms, rather than adding a fifth contract to four.
That is the real prize in an opening market. More choice helps only the buyer who can compare the options. Sprawl makes comparison hard.
A clear stance for boards
The Reserve Bank has set a direction and a rough clock. Boards should treat November as the moment to be ready, not the moment to start.
Before the rules land, every group with several payment suppliers should do three things. Map the contracts. Name one executive accountable for the whole payments cost. Decide which suppliers earn a place in 2027 and which do not.
The banks' monopoly on access is ending. The groups that benefit will be the ones that already know what they buy, from whom, and why.