The central bank wants to push the creation of a cash utility by March next year, complete with its governance setup and appointed directors. That timeline comes from Pradeep Maharaj, executive director for the central bank's Payments Ecosystem Modernization Programme, who said, "By March next year, we want to drive the establishment of the cash utility."
Alongside the new structure, the bank plans tighter oversight of how cash moves and aims to use unbranded, shared ATMs to lower costs and improve reach.
South Africa runs about 109 facilities that store, sort and distribute banknotes and coins, but Maharaj said the country likely needs only around 40 to 50. Beginning next year, the new utility would absorb cash centers run by the SARB as well as those managed by industry participants.
Where assets move into the new entity, the bank will either pay for them or give the affected firms equity in the utility. It also plans to study optimal ATM placement and which operating models to adopt.
By next year, the SARB intends to wrap up the white-label ATM program so that implementation can commence in 2028. Discussions with lenders are underway to repurpose some of their machines as neutral-branded devices usable by customers from multiple banks. A meeting between the stakeholders is scheduled for next month to finalize the proposals.
Those ATMs will need to support account inquiries, cash withdrawals and deposits, with some functions offered at no charge. Africa's largest economy has roughly 30,000 ATMs today, many beyond the reach of lower income and rural users who have fewer digital options and often face fees up to five times higher than urban customers.
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Physical currency in circulation totals about 180 billion rand, roughly 11 billion dollars, and cash still accounts for around 56 percent of consumer payments by count. Handling, transporting and protecting that money costs almost 90 billion rand each year, a burden borne by consumers. The central bank says the planned reforms will likely be the largest revamp of cash handling since ATMs arrived more than four decades ago.
To shift more activity to faster payments, the SARB wants to raise average usage to 15 payments per person per month from about one. For context, Brazil, India and Thailand see around 25 to 26 fast payments per person per month. The plan leans on PayShap, a real time platform it owns with commercial lenders, with steps such as a consistent user experience and opening access to non-banks.
The goal is to reach a monthly run rate of 500 million transactions on PayShap by 2029, up from roughly 60 million. "We want to measure that, and see how we progress in the digitization work that we are doing," Maharaj said. "It's no use building very fancy infrastructure and nobody uses it."
What this means for your portfolio: if executed, a cash utility could trim the cost of cash while shared ATMs and faster payments reshape fee pools. Watch banks, ATM operators, cash logistics firms and real time payment rails as plans move toward implementation.
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