Reserve Bank to buy half of Africa’s largest clearing house

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) plans to buy 50% of BankservAfrica, the largest automated payments clearing house in Africa.

BankservAfrica announced on Monday that the SARB intends to acquire 50% of the company in an initiative with commercial banks to transform South Africa’s digital payments ecosystem.

BankservAfrica is the largest automated payments clearing house in Africa. The company clears and processes billions of card, cash, and account-based transactions annually.

This acquisition is intended to transition the company into a national payments utility through collaboration with commercial bank shareholders.

While still subject to certain regulations, this partnership seeks to bolster efforts to modernise South Africa’s national payment system, making it more secure, inclusive, and efficient.

“Our role has always been to provide essential payment services to financial institutions,” said BankservAfrica CEO Stephen Linnell. 

“This consequential partnership between the company, its commercial bank shareholders, and the SARB signifies both a continuation and expansion of that role as we focus more deliberately on financial inclusion through affordable access to modern payment capabilities.”

A foundational offering of the envisioned Payments Utility is PayShap, a service launched by BankservAfrica in March 2023 that allows South Africans to make instant payments. 

Growing rapidly with more than 1 million transactions per day, PayShap enables more accessible, convenient and secure payments for everyday transactions.