GoTyme Bank said on Thursday that its customers now start about 26% of all PayShap cellphone payments in South Africa. The digital bank also challenged other banks to make instant payments free.
GoTyme said the number of its customers using PayShap grew by more than 250% in a year. It said almost 70% of payments by its customers are now instant and free.
“We don’t want free instant payments to remain a GoTyme competitive advantage forever. We want the industry to copy us. Instant should be the standard, and we believe free should be the standard, too,” CEO Cheslyn Jacobs said at a media briefing in Johannesburg.
The bank estimates that its customers save more than R150-million a year because qualifying instant payments carry no fee.
PayShap is run by PayInc, which was formerly called BankservAfrica. The system lets people send money between banks instantly. A sender can use a cellphone number registered as a ShapID, so they do not need the other person’s account number.
PayInc said in June that PayShap had passed one billion transactions in total. It also said the system was handling more than 60 million transactions a month.
Fees have been a regular complaint since PayShap launched in March 2023. PayInc said earlier this year that costs and uneven user experiences across banking apps were slowing the uptake of the service.
In a TechCentral column in March, Jacobs said big banks have a conflict of interest. He argued that promoting a low-cost payment system cuts into their own fee income. He said the GoTyme app automatically sends payments through PayShap as the cheapest option. TechCentral reported that this helps explain the strong uptake.
GoTyme, which was called TymeBank until it changed its name this year, also gave other figures. It said spending on its virtual cards rose 240% in a year, with 65% growth in the latest quarter. It also moved more than four million customers onto its new app this year.
The bank said it now has more than 13 million customers. It said total income rose 25% to R2.72-billion, while customer deposits rose 27% to R9.69-billion.
GoTyme expects to become South Africa’s third-largest bank by monthly active users by the first quarter of 2027. TechCentral reported that the bank did not say what data it used to rank banks this way.
Its plans for 2027 include a credit card, more personal lending through its partnership with Sanlam and a new rewards programme. The bank said it is also building ways to give customers access to investments and digital assets, subject to regulatory and licensing approvals.
Source: this article is based on reporting by TechCentral. Image: TechCentral. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.