South Africa’s biggest Black Friday spenders — including a R1.88-million purchase

Black Friday 2022 again saw single transactions worth hundreds of thousands of rands in South Africa, while at least two customers spent over a million rand in total on the day.

Physical retailers and online stores offered substantial discounts on a range of products and services during this year’s big shopping event.

Five of the country’s major banks told MyBroadband that their customers seized the opportunity.

Absa head of card issuing Tshipi Alexander said that the positive growth trend showed South African consumer resilience since the relaxing of lockdown restrictions and marked a return to volumes last seen in pre-Covid times.

The bank is yet to conclude its final round-up of the Black Friday period, but said initial indications were that transaction volumes for Absa-issued cards grew significantly.

Absa credit card spending was up by 17%, and peak time spending increased 51% from last year, Alexander said.

The single biggest transaction and highest amount spent by an Absa customer on the day was R500,000.

In 2021, the largest single transaction on Black Friday was recorded by a Nedbank customer, who paid R679,236 for a purchase.

This year, the same bank’s biggest single transaction on the day was R800,000, while the Nedbank client that spent the most in total racked up nearly R1.28 million over five transactions.

Nedbank executive for trading products Privesan Naidoo said the bank’s overall acquiring volumes surged by 38% from 2021.

Nedbank customers’ three most popular categories were groceries and food, general shopping, and clothing, followed by fuel, alcohol, and furniture.

Standard Bank told MyBroadband that its biggest splurgers were its commercial clients, with one spending R1.88 million on a single purchase.

The highest number of transactions by a single Standard Bank client was an astounding 263. Overall, Standard Bank saw spending increase by 20% year-on-year for the day.

Smaller players step up to the plate

Bank Zero and TymeBank customers were not to be left behind by those banking with the more established players.

“This was a record-breaking day for Bank Zero. Notwithstanding the market showing 21.8% year-on-year growth, we achieved nearly 4x growth on our own base,” Bank Zero said.

The bank said the biggest single purchase among its customers on the day was R48,900, while one customer spent R165,300 in total.

For reference, the highest-ever single purchase by a Bank Zero customer was R300,000.

TymeBank chief commercial officer Cheslyn Jacobs said a couple of the bank’s customers shared the highest single value transaction of R50,000 on the day.

Overall, the bank saw volumes surge by 149% and values jump by 114% compared to last year.

Capitec and Discovery Bank did not respond to our queries by the time of publication. FNB declined to participate.

The table below shows the biggest single transaction values recorded on Black Friday 2022 by Absa, Bank Zero, Nedbank, Standard Bank, and TymeBank.

Major payment system providers in South Africa — including PayFast, PayGate, Peach Payments, and Ecentric — also reported big increases in spending values and volumes for this year’s black Friday.

On PayFast, overall transactions processed on the day increased by 20% compared to 2021, with the average basket value climbing from R1,208 to R1,255.

One customer who bought something from a merchant using PayFast’s payments platform spent R397,217 over two purchases within the first six hours of the day.

PayFast’s said its payment gateway PayGate also saw an increase of 24% in payment volumes.

Peach Payments recorded 124% higher transaction volumes when comparing the entire Black Friday weekend to the same period last year.

The total payment value also increased by 123% to exceed R641 million.

The single biggest transaction made through Peach Payments on Black Friday was R100,828 at a popular online travel agent.

The largest transaction on the same platform over Cyber Monday was also in the travel services industry and was valued at R132,600.

Lastly, Ecentric Payment Systems recorded 119.73% growth over the entire Black Friday 2022 weekend compared to last year.

The single biggest purchase on its systems on Black Friday amounted to R82,020, while the highest value transaction on Cyber Monday was R300,000.

Now read: FNB customers spent R3 billion on Black Friday — here is what they bought