JSE-listed fintech firm Lesaka Technologies is rebranding its point-of-sale devices division from Kazang Insights, to Lesaka Data & Insights, as part of consolidating its merchant-based businesses under the Lesaka Merchant Division.
Lesaka says the integration of Kazang, Connect, Adumo and GAAP is part of its unified Merchant Division strategy.
Lesaka is a local fintech company that provides financial services, software and other business services to Southern Africa's underserviced consumers and merchants. Its multiproduct platform provides transactional accounts, lending, insurance, merchant acquiring, cash management, software and alternative digital products.
Formed through Lesaka's 2024 acquisition of Touchsides from Heineken International, Lesaka Data & Insights operates as a neutral data and insights partner to FMCG brands, wholesalers, financiers and other organisations serving SA’s informal market.
According to the company, the key objective of the consolidation is to turn transaction data into actionable commercial intelligence and a new source of value for Lesaka and its customers.
Lesaka Data and Insights can help FMCG manufacturers, suppliers and retailers understand what consumers are buying, where demand is growing and how products perform in the informal market, it says.
Ultimately, Lesaka wants to move beyond simply processing payments to becoming a data-driven financial and merchant-services platform, using insights to improve product distribution, merchant performance and decision-making, while creating additional revenue opportunities.
Lesaka Data & Insights has access to data from a point-of-sale network comprising over 90 000 spaza shops and taverns, and 10 500 checkouts. The company says it captures millions of transactions each month, giving its clients near-real-time visibility into stockkeeping unit-level sales, basket composition, actual selling prices, stock availability, geographic trends and promotion performance in the informal retail sector.
Southern Africa’s informal retail economy moves billions of rand a month, and almost no one can track it clearly. Most data on informal trade is modelled or sampled periodically, meaning it can be weeks or months out of date by the time it reaches decision-makers.
Lesaka Data & Insights is built on observed consumer behaviour rather than assumptions, giving brands greater confidence in the decisions they make, the company states.
It combines research, data science and analytics to help organisations understand what is happening in the market, why it is happening and what is likely to happen next. Brands see actionable insights and recommendations that help them make smarter and faster decisions about price optimisation, product distribution, promotional campaigns and allocation of their marketing budgets, it claims.
“Brands seeking to understand South Africa's informal retail economy have traditionally relied on surveys, samples and historical data,” says Roland Naidoo, COO of Lesaka's Merchant Division.
“These approaches can be expensive and often struggle to keep pace with a fast-moving market where consumer behaviour, pricing and product availability change at a rapid pace. Our goal is to give companies real-time, grassroots visibility into how South Africa's informal economy actually shops.”
Lesaka says over time, it plans to develop models that allow participating spaza shops and taverns to share in the value generated by the insights business. The company also sees data as an important catalyst for helping informal merchants digitise their operations, improve business performance and gain access to new commercial opportunities. This approach reflects Lesaka's aim to strengthen the informal economy by combining merchant services with technology, payments and data.
The company's roadmap includes plans to incorporate payments data from Lesaka’s merchant terminals and information from GAAP, the point-of-sale and software-as-a-service provider to Southern Africa's hospitality sector, into the data and insights offering.
“The informal economy remains one of the least understood parts of the consumer landscape, despite its size and importance,” adds Naidoo. "Our vision is to transform millions of real transactions into intelligence that helps businesses make faster and more informed decisions.”
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