💰 Cash flow
While digital payments continue to surge, South Africa still had R180-billion worth of notes and coins in circulation in 2024, according to PayInc (formerly BanservAfrica).
Most of that cash, R118-billion, sits with individuals and non-bank financial players. The South African Reserve Bank holds R34-billion, while commercial banks hold just R28-billion.
“Today, cash is accessible not only through banks and their ATMs, but also through a growing network of non-bank providers such as independent ATM deployers, cash aggregators, retailers and merchants. This expansion reflects innovation and structural reform, not a decline in the importance of cash for banks or consumers,” says PayInc.
But what happens to cash once it leaves commercial banks is still unclear. “With more non-bank players now part of the ecosystem, the flow and velocity of cash are harder to track, and available data is incomplete,” PayInc says.
📱 Rise of digital payments
South Africans are making more digital payments than ever before.
Over the past five years, annual digital payment volumes have doubled, from around 5-billion in 2020 to 10-billion transactions in 2025. While ATM withdrawals have dropped from 600-million to 290-million a year. Consumers now expect instant, always-on digital transactions.
The average person in South Africa currently makes six digital payments a month, according to Electrum, the next-generation payments software company powering transactions for banks and retailers. This number is expected to grow based on India and Brazil’s explosion, where people make on average 14 and 25 digital payments per month, respectively.
To meet these expectations, legacy banks must upgrade to next-generation, AI-ready payment platforms that can handle growing transaction volumes with greater speed, resilience, and reliability. When systems fail, consumer trust erodes. This opens the door for modern, technology-first competitors. As Electrum notes, “The banks that will win in the future are the ones being bold today in modernising their legacy systems.”
- Produced by The Outlier in partnership with Electrum, the next-generation payments software company, powering payments for banks and retailers.
🌍 Power vibes
73 wind and solar PV projects with a capacity of 100MW or more have been registered with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa): 26 wind and 47 solar PV.
Two of them are huge 475MW solar PV facilities. One is near Dealesville in the Free State, the other is near Modimolle in Limpopo.
But the biggest project registered is a 505MW combination of solar PV and wind called Great Karoo Phase 1 in the Northern Cape – 225MW solar PV and 280MW wind, says Nersa.
In October the total capacity of wind and solar projects registered with Nersa passed 16GW.
🍲 Increase child support grant to end hunger
Since the child support grant was introduced in 1998, the number of children living below the food poverty line has decreased, from 53% of all children in 2003 to 33% in 2019.
But there is still a way to go. The economic effects of the covid pandemic have reversed some of the gains, pushing an additional 1.2-million children into food poverty. As of 2024, 7.8-million children live below the food poverty line.
Researchers have repeatedly called for the grant to be increased. The value of the grant — R560 a month — is less than the food poverty line of R796, so it is not sufficient by itself to protect a child from food poverty. The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group has calculated the cost of meeting a child’s nutritional needs to be between R826 and R1,085, depending on the age.
Many children qualify for the grant but do not receive it. About 48% of eligible infants did not receive the grant in 2020, according to the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town.
More than a quarter of children in South Africa are stunted due to malnutrition. About 1,450 children under the age of five died of acute malnutrition in 2023.
- Produced by The Outlier in partnership with GroundUp.
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