{"id":643000,"date":"2026-04-25T09:59:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=643000"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:00:33","slug":"south-africans-say-goodbye-to-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/643000-south-africans-say-goodbye-to-cash.html","title":{"rendered":"South Africans say goodbye to cash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africans increased their digital wallet and virtual card spend by 50% in 2025, while cash usage remained flat, according to Discovery Bank’s SpendTrend26 report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report is based on an analysis the bank and payments processor Visa conducted across more than 12 million cards and billions of transactions last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The companies also surveyed more than 1,000 South African consumers to better understand their spending habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analysis found that although cash use was “holding steady” in South Africa, cards and digital payments were the preferred payment method for 94% of respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

42% of South Africans only used cash a few times in a month, while 23% used cash once a month or not at all. The remaining 32% said they used cash a few times a week or nearly every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This pattern suggests that cash is no longer the default, but rather a fallback option,” Discovery Bank said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cash’s usage in South Africa is narrowing to specific practical use cases, including tipping, parking, and taxi payments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a widespread perception that South Africa will be completely cashless in the near future. 55% of respondents in the survey said they believed this would happen within five years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who use cards for payments, virtual cards and digital wallets like Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Samsung Wallet have also become the preferred payment method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital wallets accounted for 30% of spending in the analysis. Discovery Bank also found that the average consumer used them nearly twice as much in 2025 as in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtual cards can be generated within banking apps. They allow users to easily use different cards for online shopping and can be linked to a digital wallet for in-person payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a virtual card’s details are compromised, users can quickly cancel the card and have a new one issued within minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

85% of South Africans reported they had a virtual credit or debit card in 2025, up from 80% in 2024. In addition, 73% said they used their virtual card, a substantial increase from 45% in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

57% of respondents said they used virtual cards due to their enhanced security. This was down from 61% that said security was their primary motivator for virtual card usage in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, 43% of survey participants said they used virtual cards mainly for convenience, up from 26% in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other major banks report digital wallet surge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Discovery Bank user making a tap payment using Google Wallet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many of South Africa’s other major banks have continued to observe substantial increases in digital wallet usage in 2026 compared to previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in April 2026, Standard Bank told MyBroadband its digital wallet spending had grown 56% year-on-year in the first three months of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These types of transactions accounted for 13% of total point-of-sale credit card spend, compared to 7% two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nedbank also saw digital wallet transaction values increase by 71% in 2025, raising the total share of these transactions to 22% of all card spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absa told MyBroadband its digital wallet growth was sustained over the past year, with more than a 50% increase year-on-year in both volumes and value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in banks where cash transactions were traditionally prevalent, there has been a substantial shift away from notes and coins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec’s digital payment volumes increased by 25% in its last financial year, while card payment volumes grew 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital wallet payments jumped by 103% to R68 billion, significantly outpacing physical card growth of 19% to R608 billion. Digital wallets’ share of card payments increased to 11%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although overall cash volumes increased 10%, this was driven primarily by the digital Send Cash feature. Cash payments only increased 4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, half of all payments in Capitec’s 2026 financial year were digital, up 25% from the year before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discovery Bank says cash is no longer South Africans’ default payment option, and that digital wallets and virtual cards are seeing exponential growth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":643112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10106],"tags":[45641,53417,74894,38880,104780,78910,104761,80697],"class_list":["post-643000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-cash","tag-digital-payments","tag-digital-wallets","tag-discovery-bank","tag-discovery-spendtrend26-report","tag-south-african-rand","tag-spendtrend26","tag-virtual-cards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643000"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643368,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643000\/revisions\/643368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}