8 payment providers join forces to launch cutting-edge industry association

7 Feb 2025

The debut of the Association of South African Payment Providers (ASAPP) comes at a crucial time to address South Africa's heavy reliance on cash, especially among consumers, micro-merchants, and small businesses in townships.

Source: @ASSAP/X. Tim Masela, Head: National Payment System Department, South African Reserve Bank.

Launched on Wednesday, 29 January, 2025, in Sandton, Johannesburg, ASAPP will collaborate with regulators, policymakers, and industry stakeholders in its aim to promote fair access to payment infrastructure, reduce the wholesale cost of digital payments and enhance transparency and customer mobility within South Africa's payment ecosystem.

In so doing, it aims to lower the price of real-time payments and potentially bring more of South Africa's unbanked and under-banked consumers into the financial system.

ASAPP's founding members include Altron, Hello Group, iKhokha, Lesaka Technologies, Network International (which owns Payfast by Network), Peach Payments, Shop2Shop, and Yoco.

“With ASAPP as an organisation, the largest players in the payment industry have come together to represent the common view and common shared voice to build better products and solutions as a coalition for the consumers of South Africa," said Rahul Jain, co-founder & chief executive officer of
Peach Payments.

""By creating competition, ASAPP can lower the costs of payments for consumers and merchants alike, encourage innovation, but more importantly, accelerate the adoption of digital payments in South Africa," said Moosa Manjra, chief executive officer of Hello Group

“We believe that non-banks are best placed to be the catalyst to drive real socio-economic improvement and change in the country," said Matt Putman co-founder and chief executive officer of iKhokha.

"By bringing together the biggest non-banks in the country, we can pool our resources, data, industry knowledge and have a far bigger collective impact on positively influencing the growth of the South African economy."

The launch of ASAPP coincides with the Reserve Bank's plan to open the National Payments System to non-bank fintechs, aiming to accelerate the digitisation of money and enhance financial inclusion.