\n South Africa\u2019s central bank is planning the most significant overhaul of the country\u2019s cash system in decades, proposing the creation of a cash-management utility, the rollout of white-label ATMs and stricter oversight of how physical money circulates to reduce costs and improve access.\n <\/p>\n
\n Cash circulating through Africa\u2019s largest economy exceeds 180 billion rand ($10.7 billion), or about 2.5% of gross domestic product, and still accounts for roughly two-thirds of all transaction volumes despite the growth of digital payments, according to Bloomberg.\n <\/p>\n
\n Managing, transporting and securing physical cash cost about 90 billion rand last year, a burden largely borne by consumers, with crime accounting for 13% of the total.\n <\/p>\n
\n The initiative, known as the Cash Smart Strategy, aims to ensure that cash remains accessible to low-income and rural communities that have limited digital payment options and often pay fees up to five times higher than wealthier urban users.\n <\/p>\n
\n The reforms would mark the biggest change to cash circulation since the introduction of ATMs more than 40 years ago.\n <\/p>\n
\n The South African Reserve Bank expects cash usage to decline by 30% to 40% once the country reaches digitisation levels comparable to those of India, Brazil and the European Union.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very radical transformation of the industry,\u201d Pradeep Maharaj, the head of the South African Reserve Bank\u2019s Payments Ecosystem Modernisation Programme, said in an interview.\n <\/p>\n
\n At the heart of the plan is the establishment of a cash utility jointly owned by banks, retailers and other stakeholders. The entity would resemble the Netherlands\u2019 Geldmaat, which operates a unified ATM network on behalf of several major banks.\n <\/p>\n
\n The utility would forecast cash demand and manage distribution, eliminating an estimated 480 million rand in indirect subsidies currently received by a small number of private companies that handle cash circulation for the central bank.\n <\/p>\n
White-Label ATMs proposed<\/p>\n
\n Under the proposal, ATMs, which are currently owned by banks such as Capitec Bank Holdings and FirstRand, would be transferred to the utility and converted into white-label machines accessible to customers of any bank at minimal or no cost.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere\u2019ll be complete interoperability, which would allow us to reduce fees to almost zero,\u201d Maharaj said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The plan was presented to banks this month, with consultations with industry experts set to begin in January. Full implementation could take up to three years.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s central bank is planning the most significant overhaul of the country\u2019s cash system in decades, proposing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-349559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}