The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has shifted from viewing South Africa’s reliance on cash as an obstacle to building a modern, digitally-enabled economy, to treating cash as critical public infrastructure that must be actively protected and modernised.
The move can be seen across three successive SARB policy documents as the central bank progressed towards goals set in 2018. The 2024 Digital Payments Roadmap described South Africa’s “over-reliance” on cash as a barrier to digital adoption. Digital payments, it says, can “spur economic activity and trade, enhance economic growth and uplift the lives of ordinary South Africans”.
A year later, the central bank was still promoting digital payments to reduce cash dependency but acknowledged that “a parallel development of a national cash infrastructure management strategy is necessary to avoid digital exclusion”.
Its 2026 “Towards a Cash Smart Society” position paper completes that evolution, describing cash as “an enduring component of a modern, hybrid payments economy” that requires active stewardship rather than managed decline.
This, it notes, is because of the cost of an inefficient cash payments system.
“Research undertaken by SARB indicates that consumers incur approximately R90 billion annually in costs for the use of cash,” the paper says. Those costs are “inequitably distributed and largely borne by end-users through both direct fees and indirect burdens, such as travel time, opportunity costs and exposure to crime”.
SARB adds: “For millions of South Africans – particularly those in rural areas, informal markets and lower-income households – cash is the most accessible, trusted and practical means of payment.”
It says cash “also serves as an essential national fall-back during power outages, network failures and other systemic disruptions when digital systems are unavailable”.
Cash under strain
SARB argues that the cash ecosystem can no longer just be left to market forces. “Fragmentation, duplication, rising costs, uneven service standards, market failure risks and limited regulatory oversight are undermining the affordability, accessibility and integrity of cash services,” it says.
Without addressing these “dynamic risks” there is the danger of creating a system in which cash becomes increasingly expensive and inaccessible for those who depend on it most, while commercial incentives alone prove insufficient to sustain universal access or resilience, SARB explains.
The central bank’s solution is the Cash Smart Strategy, anchored in three objectives: reducing the cost of cash by addressing structural inefficiencies and duplication; ensuring broad and equitable access across urban and rural areas; and embedding ethical, secure and accountable stewardship of physical currency.
In practical terms, the strategy proposes shared infrastructure through a national cash utility, wider use of white-label ATMs and retailer cash-back, universal service obligations to prevent “cash deserts”, and a new regulatory framework governing banks, cash-in-transit companies, ATM operators and retailers.
“It is not anticipated that South Africa will become a cashless society,” SARB says. “As South Africa’s payments landscape continues to evolve, SARB is committed to ensuring cash remains a trusted, accessible and resilient component of the national payment system.”
How we got here
Modernisation of the payment system started in 2019 as Project Stimela. The 2024 Digital Payments Roadmap – part of that programme – noted that the goal then was to accelerate digital adoption.
“Cash remains king in SA,” it notes, describing this as a problem to be solved. It identified cash dependence, alongside high costs, lack of interoperability and limited digital literacy, as barriers to financial inclusion.
SARB says South Africa has made significant progress in digitising payments. More than 94% of adults are financially included and about 82% have at least one bank account. Since 2021, the country has phased out cheques, launched the PayShap faster payments system, and expanded contactless payments and QR codes.
Despite this, “the pace of adoption of emerging digital payments and the utilisation of existing digital payments in SA across all market segments have been sluggish,” the roadmap said.
The 2025 position paper, Positioning the SARB’s Payments Ecosystem Modernisation Programme, showed that SARB was still moving towards a goal of minimising cash in the economy.
“Shifting from cash to digital payments helps economies achieve greater transparency, reduces the risks of illicit financial flows and unlocks new innovations in financial services,” it said, projecting a 0.5% GDP boost from digital payments adoption.
But it also acknowledged for the first time that a parallel cash infrastructure strategy was necessary.
The digital counterpart
The cornerstone of SARB’s payments overhaul is PayInc, which the central bank is transforming into the National Payments Utility (NPU) after acquiring a 50% stake in what was then called BankservAfrica in November 2025.
The NPU will provide shared infrastructure for fast, affordable and interoperable digital payments, with SARB reporting in April that its board had been established, governance structures approved and PwC appointed as strategic adviser.
“The NPU will oversee the operation of a fast payment system that functions much like cash, providing instant, free and easy-to-use transactions with clear confirmation of payment,” SARB says.
By 2030, SARB wants to see a downward or stable trend in cash in circulation alongside a progressive shift towards digital payments. Currency in circulation is currently about R180 billion.
“South Africa’s payments system is undergoing rapid transformation as digital and mobile payment methods expand. Yet cash remains a foundational component of the economy, particularly for everyday transactions, informal markets and cash-reliant households. It continues to provide immediacy, universal acceptance and operational resilience when digital systems are unavailable,” SARB says.
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