South Africa’s fintechs are competing to personal the platforms by way of which customers obtain, transfer and spend cash. The prize is a permanent place in customers’ monetary lives.
Digital banks, cell operators, and remittance firms are converging on the identical alternative: making everyday transactions so handy that clients hold returning, creating alternatives to earn income, accumulate transaction knowledge, and promote extra providers.
The subsequent fintech battle can be gained not by whoever opens probably the most accounts, however by whoever turns into indispensable to the every day motion of cash. That requires greater than an app or low cost transfers. It means growing providers that clients use repeatedly to obtain, maintain, and spend cash.
The alternative is substantial. South Africa’s card payments alone reached R2.7 trillion ($149.4 billion) in 2024, whereas money nonetheless accounted for 56% of shopper transactions by quantity, in accordance to the South African Reserve Bank’s examine. For fintechs, the prize is capturing extra of this everyday spending and turning it into repeat utilization and sustainable income.
The infrastructure behind the connection
Bank Zero illustrates how this contest is altering. The app-only lender recorded its first break-even month in August 2026, 5 years after opening to the general public. Its subsequent part of progress relies upon partly on alliance banking, which allows fintechs, retailers, and digital platforms to supply monetary providers on Bank Zero’s infrastructure.
The mannequin separates the banking rails from the customer-facing model. Partners present clients and distribution, whereas Bank Zero provides the know-how that underpins their monetary merchandise.
Bank Zero has 275,000 direct clients, whereas its partnerships are bringing a further 500,000 clients to its platform, although some overlap between the 2 teams makes its whole buyer attain unclear. Its partnership with Mukuru, a remittance-led digital monetary providers supplier, demonstrates how the mannequin can prolong a financial institution’s attain with out requiring it to purchase each buyer instantly.
But scale doesn’t robotically translate into buyer loyalty. Bank Zero can present the infrastructure, but companions might retain management of the shopper expertise. That makes partnership progress priceless whereas elevating a strategic query about who in the end owns the connection.
Turning subscribers into fintech customers
MTN MoMo, a cell cash and digital monetary providers platform, is pursuing the identical ambition from a telecommunications base. Serigne Dioum, MTN Group Fintech chief govt officer (CEO), desires to convert the group’s 317 million telecom subscribers into lively customers of its monetary providers ecosystem. In September 2026, MoMo had greater than 70 million month-to-month lively customers throughout 14 markets.
The hole between these numbers reveals the distinction between having distribution and constructing monetary habits. MTN should persuade subscribers to use MoMo past occasional transfers, notably in South Africa, the place established banking providers coexist with persistent money utilization.
Its ambitions prolong to service provider payments, financial savings, lending and cross-border transfers. The strategic aim is to make digital wallets helpful sufficient that clients can hold cash in them and transact with out repeatedly cashing out.
FNB Connect, a bank-owned cell digital community operator, provides one other route into everyday monetary behaviour. By combining cell connectivity with banking providers and rewards, it makes use of an current banking relationship to join clients with providers they want all through the day. In its newest monetary 12 months, FNB Connect and related providers recorded R28.6 billion ($1.7 billion) in buyer worth and gross sales, up 18%.
The convergence is important as a result of competitors is not confined to banks and fintechs. Mobile operators can use telecommunications distribution, whereas banks can prolong their attain by way of connectivity, rewards and different providers. Both are looking for extra frequent buyer engagement.
Mukuru’s transfer past remittances
Mukuru’s enlargement past cross-border transfers reveals why the cash’s journey after arrival issues. The firm constructed its enterprise serving to migrants ship cash residence. Its remittance-driven neobank technique seeks to prolong that relationship by enabling clients to maintain funds, make payments and entry extra monetary providers.
In South Africa, Bank Zero offers the infrastructure behind Mukuru’s account and card providing. About 500,000 Mukuru clients are being migrated onto Bank Zero’s platform, illustrating how a remittance enterprise can increase into banking with out constructing its personal financial institution from scratch.
Mukuru goals to flip periodic remittances into an ongoing monetary relationship, whereas Bank Zero can scale by partnering with a longtime buyer base. Both are betting that earning money extra helpful after it arrives creates extra alternatives to serve clients.
The problem is changing that proposition into repeated use. If clients nonetheless withdraw their funds instantly or use competing providers for everyday purchases, the chance to construct a broader relationship stays restricted.
The economics of proudly owning payments
Payments carry know-how, compliance, and customer support prices, whereas free transfers don’t essentially generate sustainable earnings. Providers want extra income streams with out weakening the worth proposition that draws clients.
A pockets turns into extra helpful when clients will pay at outlets, settle payments and switch cash throughout suppliers simply and affordably. That requires dependable infrastructure, broad service provider acceptance, and interoperability, slightly than merely a lot of registered customers.
Rushana Pillay, a Master of Management graduate in Digital Business from Wits Business School, identifies the obstacles to everyday digital payments in her 2025 analysis paper, Factors that affect the adoption of real-time digital payments in South Africa. Her findings spotlight excessive transaction prices, fragmented trade collaboration and restricted cost interoperability as obstacles to adoption. For fintechs, profitable everyday spending means making digital payments inexpensive, seamless and broadly accepted sufficient to compete with money.
Established banks have a bonus in buyer belief and cost networks, whereas newer entrants should supply compelling causes for patrons to change their monetary habits. Partnerships can speed up progress, however reliance on one other establishment’s infrastructure can restrict management over the shopper relationship.
The key query for buyers and operators is whether or not buyer progress interprets into frequent transactions and sustainable income. Account numbers measure scale, however ordinary use and service provider acceptance reveal whether or not a platform has turn into a part of customers’ everyday monetary lives.
The companies that flip distribution into worthwhile, recurring payments can be higher positioned to retain clients, develop income and justify additional funding.
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