South Africa’s fintechs are competing to personal the platforms by way of which shoppers obtain, transfer and spend cash. The prize is an everlasting place in shoppers’ monetary lives.
Digital banks, mobile operators, and remittance firms are converging on the identical alternative: making everyday transactions so handy that clients hold returning, creating alternatives to earn income, gather transaction information, and promote further providers.
The subsequent fintech battle might be gained not by whoever opens essentially 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 creating 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 consumer transactions by volume, 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 section of development 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 expertise that underpins their monetary merchandise.
Bank Zero has 275,000 direct clients, whereas its partnerships are bringing an extra 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 lengthen a financial institution’s attain with out requiring it to purchase each buyer straight.
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 development beneficial whereas elevating a strategic query about who finally owns the connection.
Turning subscribers into fintech customers
MTN MoMo, a cellular cash and digital monetary providers platform, is pursuing the identical ambition from a telecommunications base. Serigne Dioum, MTN Group Fintech chief government officer (CEO), wants 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 exhibits 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 lengthen 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 cellular digital community operator, offers another route into everyday financial behaviour. By combining cellular connectivity with banking providers and rewards, it makes use of an present banking relationship to join clients with providers they want all through the day. In its newest monetary yr, 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 lengthen their attain by way of connectivity, rewards and different providers. Both are in search of extra frequent buyer engagement.
Mukuru’s transfer past remittances
Mukuru’s enlargement past cross-border transfers shows why the money’s journey after arrival matters. The firm constructed its enterprise serving to migrants ship cash residence. Its remittance-driven neobank technique seeks to lengthen that relationship by enabling clients to maintain funds, make payments and entry further monetary providers.
In South Africa, Bank Zero gives 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 broaden 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 creating wealth 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 expertise, compliance, and customer support prices, whereas free transfers don’t essentially generate sustainable income. Providers want further income streams with out weakening the worth proposition that draws clients.
A pockets turns into extra helpful when clients pays at retailers, settle payments and switch cash throughout suppliers simply and affordably. That requires dependable infrastructure, broad service provider acceptance, and interoperability, moderately than merely numerous registered customers.
Rushana Pillay, a Master of Management graduate in Digital Business from Wits Business School, identifies the boundaries to everyday digital payments in her 2025 analysis paper, Factors that impact the adoption of real-time electronic payments in South Africa. Her findings spotlight excessive transaction prices, fragmented trade collaboration and restricted fee interoperability as obstacles to adoption. For fintechs, successful 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 fee networks, whereas newer entrants should supply compelling causes for purchasers to change their monetary habits. Partnerships can speed up development, 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 development interprets into frequent transactions and sustainable income. Account numbers measure scale, however recurring use and service provider acceptance reveal whether or not a platform has turn out to be a part of shoppers’ everyday monetary lives.
The companies that flip distribution into worthwhile, recurring payments might be higher positioned to retain clients, develop income and justify additional funding.
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