We tried South Africa’s new real time payments system PayShap. Here’s what we found

On Monday 13th March, PayShap, an interbank, and real-time digital payments service built as a collaborative effort between Bankserv, a clearing house owned by South African commercial banks, and the South African Reserve Bank, was launched in South Africa.

PayShap claims to offer an easy and safe way for banked and underbanked consumers to make low-value (initially up to R3000) payments to one another in real-time irrespective of where they bank.

TechCabal put the system to the test using a First National Bank (FNB) account on the sender side to send funds to another FNB user. This was  the result:

1. To start the transaction, we used FNB’s mobile app which gave the option of PayShap to make a payment.

2. We then had to select the recipient’s bank

3. Next, PayShap gave the option of either sending the funds to a bank account using the recipient’s account number or their ShapID which is a unique identifier such as their mobile number.

4. We chose the option of ShapID and used the recipient’s cellphone number to complete the transaction.

5. We then proceeded to pick the amount to send as well as our reference and the recipient’s reference. The transaction limit is R3,000 daily with a fee of R7 per transaction.

6. Lastly, we sent the amount through, after which we received a notification of a successful transaction.

7. On the recipient side, the transaction was received almost instantaneously without any issue

Overall, using PayShap was a smooth experience without any noticeable hiccups.