Cash Lite

South Africa: Fintech Ozow plans expansion into SADC and West Africa

By David Whitehouse

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Posted on August 9, 2021 06:27

Spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in South Africa © Instant payments can change South Africa’s bricks and mortar banking legacy. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
Instant payments can change South Africa’s bricks and mortar banking legacy. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

South African electronic payments provider Ozow plans expansion to countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and West Africa as South Africa’s planned adoption of an instant payment system creates opportunities to increase scale, CEO Thomas Pays tells The Africa Report.

Plans to enter Namibia are the furthest advanced, with a regulatory application to operate having been finalised, Pays says from Cape Town. He aims to be in the country by the end of February 2022. Ozow is in the “preliminary stages” of engaging with other SADC countries and also wants to expand to Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, Pays says.

Instant payments are set to bring a quiet revolution in South African banking. The country aims to create an instant payments system known as the Rapid Payment Programme (RPP), which Pays hopes will become a reality in the middle of 2022. The project is led by BankServAfrica, alongside the country’s banking and payments associations.

READ MORE South Africa’s BankservAfrica plans payments platform for SADC countries

  • The plans will initially be implemented by 11 of the country’s major banks. The aims are to increase financial inclusion, reduce cash dependency and create an integrated digital payments platform.
  • In February, Tata

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