How do people in South Africa pay online?
Most adults have a bank account. World Bank Global Findex data puts account ownership at 81.13% of people aged 15 and over in 2024. Online, people pay from those accounts by card, Instant EFT and, more recently, PayShap.
Cards are the familiar option. Visa and Mastercard are the international card networks in the South African Reserve Bank’s map of the national payment system,. The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) reported that gross fraud losses on South African issued cards rose 18% to R1.75 billion in 2025. Card-not-present fraud was the largest type, at R780.5 million, and losses from transactions inside South Africa rose 43.3% to R857.5 million, which SABRIC links to the growing use of cards for online payments.
Instant EFT is the bank-account alternative. With Ozow, one of the providers, the shopper chooses their bank at checkout, signs in to online banking, picks the account and approves the payment with a one-time PIN or in the banking app. Ozow’s pay-by-bank options include Capitec Pay, Absa Pay and Nedbank Direct EFT, and it says such payments are irrevocable once confirmed.
PayShap is the instant payment rail. It went live on 13 March 2023 with Absa, First National Bank, Standard Bank and Nedbank, under the Reserve Bank’s Rapid Payments Programme, and lets people pay using a ShapID, an alias such as a cellphone number. The launch limit of R3,000 a transaction rose to R50,000 in October 2024. It handled 44.8 million payments in August 2025 and by March 2026 ran 24 hours a day across 14 banks. The service was driven by BankservAfrica, renamed PayInc in August 2025, and the Payments Association of South Africa.
What rules shape online payments in South Africa?
Foreign digital sellers charge VAT. A non-resident that supplies electronic services into South Africa is treated as carrying on an enterprise there when two of three tests are met: the customer is resident, payment comes from a South African bank, or the customer has a South African address. It must then register and charge VAT at the standard rate of 15%. SARS’s guide puts the compulsory registration threshold at R2.3 million of supplies in 12 months from 1 April 2026, up from R1 million, and SARS applies it to new registrations while the amending law is finalised. Since 1 April 2025, foreign suppliers that sell only to VAT-registered businesses are outside the rules and no longer need to register.
Online shoppers can cancel within seven days. Section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002 lets a consumer cancel an electronic purchase without reason or penalty within seven days of receiving goods, or of concluding an agreement for services. The supplier may charge only the direct cost of returning the goods and must refund any payment in full within 30 days. Section 42 excludes some purchases, such as personalised or perishable goods, unsealed software, books and dated travel services. Section 43 lists what a website must show, including the full price with taxes and fees, the return and refund policy and the payment security policy, and an order review step; if these are missing, the customer can cancel within 14 days. The seller must also use a sufficiently secure payment system.
Faulty goods can be returned for six months. Under section 56 of the Consumer Protection Act 2008, a consumer may return goods that fail the Act’s quality standards within six months of delivery, at the supplier’s risk and expense, and choose between repair, replacement or a refund.
Customer data has its own regulator. The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 is enforced by the Information Regulator, with which information officers must register. Personal information may go abroad only under substantially similar protection, with consent, or where the contract needs it. Breaches must be reported to the Regulator and to affected people as soon as reasonably possible, and the maximum administrative fine is R10 million.
Foreign exchange runs through banks. Under the Reserve Bank’s exchange control rules, currency matters go through an Authorised Dealer, usually a bank, and every cross-border foreign exchange transaction it handles for a client is reported daily to the Financial Surveillance Department, whatever the value.
How would Omno route payments in South Africa?
A merchant would connect once and set routing rules per method, currency and customer group. In South Africa:
- Card pay-ins can be routed by BIN, so cards from each issuing bank go to the acquirer your rule sets for each issuer, with cascading to the next provider in the rule if one is unavailable or rejects the request.
- Instant EFT pay-ins would go to a provider such as Ozow, with the order pending until the provider’s notification confirms the final status.
- PayShap Request could be offered in the hosted checkout for shoppers who prefer to approve in their banking app.
- Payouts to South African bank accounts would follow PSP eligibility rules, with a unique reference so a retry cannot pay twice.
Webhooks would report the final status of every payment, the record a back office should trust before shipping an order, and the routing-decision log would show which provider handled each payment and why.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for card fraud controls. Card-not-present fraud is the largest loss type on South African cards, so issuer authentication and BIN-level routing matter for approval rates.
Plan for VAT and checkout disclosures. A foreign seller of electronic services needs to watch the R2.3 million threshold, and every store needs the section 43 information, an order review step and a seven-day cancellation process with refunds inside 30 days.
Plan for refunds and payouts from a float. Providers such as Ozow pay refunds and payouts from a balance the merchant funds in advance, so finance teams need to keep it topped up and reconcile settlements by provider.