GoTyme Bank has turned a fee into a brand fight. At a media briefing in Johannesburg on 29 October, chief executive Cheslyn Jacobs challenged South Africa's other banks to make instant payments free. "We don't want free instant payments to remain a GoTyme competitive advantage forever," he said, according to TechCentral.
The bank, renamed from TymeBank this year, says its customers originate about 26% of PayShap cellphone payments, in which money is sent to a registered phone number rather than an account number. PayShap users among its customers grew more than 250% year on year, and almost 70% of their payments are instant and free, the bank said. It estimates customers save more than R150 million a year because qualifying instant payments carry no fee. These are GoTyme's own figures.
The rivalry
PayShap, run by PayInc (formerly BankservAfrica), launched in March 2023 and passed one billion cumulative transactions in June, with more than 60 million a month, TechCentral reported. Fees have been a running complaint, and PayInc acknowledged earlier this year that costs and uneven experiences across banking apps were slowing adoption.
Jacobs argued in a March column that big banks have a conflict of interest, because pushing a cheap payment rail eats into their fee income. GoTyme's app routes payments through PayShap automatically as the cheapest option, which TechCentral credits for its strong take-up. The pitch positions GoTyme as the bank on the customer's side of the fee argument, the same story it has told since it launched free PayShap payments in 2023.
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- More than 13 million customers, just over 8 million of them active each month (ITWeb).
- Total income up 25% to R2.72 billion; deposits up 27% to R9.69 billion.
- Net customer loans up 126% to R5.08 billion.
- More than 4 million customers moved to its new app this year; virtual-card spending up 240% year on year.
GoTyme expects to become South Africa's third-largest bank by monthly active users by the first quarter of 2027, but did not say what data it used for the ranking, according to TechCentral. Its 2027 plans include a credit card, more personal lending through its Sanlam partnership, a new rewards programme and, subject to approvals, investments and digital assets.
