---
title: "Is It Worth Adding a New Payment Method in South Africa? | NjiaPay"
canonical_url: "https://njiapay.com/resources/blog/is-it-worth-adding-a-new-payment-method-a-guide-for-south-african-merchants"
last_updated: "2026-11-12T13:45:39.399Z"
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  description: "Should your store add Apple Pay, Capitec Pay or BNPL? See how South Africans pay online in 2026 and what to weigh up: cost, conversion and risk."
  "og:description": "Should your store add Apple Pay, Capitec Pay or BNPL? See how South Africans pay online in 2026 and what to weigh up: cost, conversion and risk."
  "og:title": "Is It Worth Adding a New Payment Method in South Africa?"
---

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5 Oct 2026

# **Is It Worth Adding a New Payment Method? A Guide for South African Merchants**

*Short answer: Yes, for most South African online merchants. Adding a payment method your customers already use, such as Apple Pay or a bank-app payment like Capitec Pay, can recover sales lost to declined cards and speed up checkout. The value depends on matching methods to your customers and tracking total cost, not just conversion.*

Most merchants reach the point of asking whether their checkout needs another payment method. Something usually prompts the question: a run of declined cards, a PSP outage, or customers asking whether you accept Capitec Pay or Apple Pay.

The answer isn't as simple as adding everything on offer. Each new method brings its own fees, its own risks after the sale and one more option for customers to scroll past at checkout. The right mix lifts conversion, while the wrong one adds cost and clutter with little to show for it.

This guide looks at the payment methods available in South Africa, how consumers are paying in 2026, why adding a method can be worth it, and what to weigh up before you do.

## **What payment methods are available in South Africa?**

| **Method** | **What it is** | **Who tends to use it** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Cards** (Amex, Visa, Mastercard) | Standard card payments linked to a debit or credit account. Customers enter their card details at checkout and authenticate with 3D Secure (3DS). | Nearly everyone with a bank account. Still the default method across most ecommerce. |
| **Pay by bank** (instant EFT (e.g. Ozow, PayFast EFT) and bank-app payments (e.g. Capitec Pay, Absa Pay) | Pays directly from the customer's bank account, with no card needed. Instant EFT routes the payment through online banking, while bank-app payments like Capitec Pay and Absa Pay send the customer to their own banking app to approve the payment, with no card or banking details entered at checkout. | Customers without a card, or who prefer not to use one online. Spans a broad age range. Mobile-first, banked South African consumers, particularly younger adults, digital-native shoppers. |
| **Card wallets** (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) | One-tap payments using a card stored on the customer’s phone, verified with Face ID, fingerprint or passcode. | Convenience-driven shoppers. Strongest in urban areas and among younger, tech-comfortable customers, shoppers who tend to buy on their Smartphone. |
| **QR payment apps** (SnapScan, Zapper) | Customers scan a QR code in the app to pay. Most widely used in-store, with some online support. | Shoppers who already use the app for in-store payments. |
| **Buy now, pay later** (PayJustNow, Happy Pay, Float) | Splits a purchase into instalments, often interest-free, or allows you to pay the invoice at a later date. | Credit-active shoppers who could pay upfront but prefer to spread the cost. 71% of credit-active South Africans now use BNPL \[1]. |
| **Mobile money** (e.g. MTN MoMo) | A digital wallet tied to a mobile number rather than a bank account, usable for payments, transfers and airtime purchases via app or USSD. | Consumers without formal bank accounts, and increasingly informal traders. MTN reported 13 million registered MoMo users in South Africa in April 2025 \[3], though far fewer use it regularly: around 513,000 were monthly active users in 2024 \[16]. Over 95% of informal-sector transactions are still cash \[4]. |
| **Debit orders** | Pulls funds directly from the customer's bank account under a signed mandate authorising the merchant to collect, including DebiCheck, South Africa’s authenticated debit order system. | Typically used for recurring payments such as insurance, subscriptions, memberships and instalment plans. |
| **Vouchers** | Mostly bought with cash at a retailer and redeemed online (e.g. 1Voucher, OTT Voucher). | Customers without a bank card or account, or prefer to pay with cash, common where banking access is limited. |

\**This isn't every method out there, but it covers the main ones South African merchants will come across.*

## **How are South Africans paying online in 2026?**

South Africa's payments landscape is shifting quickly. A 2026 survey of 3,000 South African consumers found that \[1]:

- **93.3%** of consumers tried a payment method beyond cash and card in the past year, and no single method dominates anymore.
- **Digital wallets led the way**, with 57.5% trying Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay for the first time.
- **BNPL came next, at 38.9%**. Convenience was the top reason for using it (58%), ahead of interest-free terms (49%) and cash flow management (44%).
- **Bank-native methods are close behind**: 38.6% tried Capitec Pay and 35.0% tried PayShap for the first time. Capitec Pay is now the second most preferred method for online shopping, and EBANX reports it can reach 24 million users, around 57% of South Africa's adult population \[5].

## **Why add a new payment method?**

Adding a payment method can lift checkout conversion in three main ways.

1. **Build trust at checkout with methods shoppers recognise.** Trust at checkout often comes down to recognition. When shoppers see a method they already use, like Apple Pay or their own bank's app, they can pay without handing their card details to a site they may not know. This matters because South Africa's ecommerce cart abandonment rate is already around 83% \[6], so every reason to hesitate counts. In Baymard Institute research on US shoppers, 19% of those who abandoned a checkout said they didn't trust the site with their card information, and 9% said there weren't enough payment methods \[7]. Locally, security ranks second only to convenience when South Africans choose how to pay \[1]. Offering methods your customers recognise is one of the simplest ways to turn a hesitant shopper into a completed sale.
2. **Give customers a second way to pay when the first one fails.** In the 2024 World Wide Worx survey of more than 200 South African online retailers, 52% named declined card payments as the top reason for cart abandonment \[8]. Once a payment fails, most customers don't come back: around 62% of consumers who experience a payment failure don't return to complete the purchase \[9]. When card is the only option, a decline usually ends the sale. When the same checkout also offers a wallet or pay by bank, the customer can switch and finish buying in the moment.
3. **Speed up checkout.** The median digital wallet transaction takes around 3 seconds, compared to 15 to 30 seconds for card \[1]. One-click wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, along with quicker repeat payments through pay by bank, remove friction at the moment that matters most.

## **What drives payment method choice in South Africa?**

Convenience comes first and security a close second. In a 2026 survey, 31.1% of South African consumers named convenience as the primary factor in choosing how to pay, with security close behind at 23.6% \[1]. Rewards and cashback mattered most to 15.9%, speed to 13.9%, trust in the provider to 9.2%, and low cost to 6.2%.

Together, convenience and security account for over half of consumer decision-making. A payment method that's fast but feels unsafe risks losing nearly a quarter of consumers on principle, while one that's secure but clunky loses the largest single group on convenience alone. The methods gaining ground fastest, digital wallets and pay by bank, tend to score well on both, which goes a long way to explaining why they're eating into card's share of wallet.

## **How many payment methods should you show at checkout?**

Support as many methods as your customers need, but show only the handful each customer is most likely to use. Displaying every option at once can backfire, an effect psychologists call choice overload. In TrueLayer research with more than 2,400 UK online shoppers, nearly four in ten said they'd feel overwhelmed if offered more than five payment options, and that kind of checkout confusion can damage conversion \[10].

So merchants need to answer two separate questions: which payment methods should you support, and which should each customer actually see at checkout?

The methods on display should be curated around what customers are most likely to use. Rather than presenting every option equally, prioritise the most relevant ones and place the rest behind an "Other payment methods" link.

Position matters too. Across NjiaPay merchants, we see that the payment method ranked first is frequently the one selected most often. When Apple Pay was enabled for our client DreamDrive, a significant portion of customers began using it even though it wasn't specifically promoted. Its availability and position within the checkout were enough to drive adoption.

This creates another decision for the merchant: what do you want your checkout to optimise for? The method most likely to convert may not always be the one with the lowest cost. Sorting and positioning give you a way to steer customers towards the methods that best support your commercial objective.

BNPL is a good example of where curation matters. Offering several BNPL providers increases the chance that a customer already has an account with one of them, which removes the friction of registering with a new provider. But showing every BNPL option also adds more choices to the checkout, so the value of that extra coverage needs to be weighed against the extra decision points it creates.

## **What to consider before adding methods**

Before adding a payment method, ask what role it will play. Will it give you access to a customer segment you couldn't previously serve, or help an existing segment convert faster or at a lower cost? Two things should shape the answer: who you're selling to, and what each method really costs.

### **Who's buying from you, and what you're selling**

The right mix depends on your customers and your product. A younger, urban audience shopping on mobile is likely to reach for a digital wallet. Customers without a card, or who prefer not to use one online, will look for pay by bank, mobile money or vouchers. Subscription and membership businesses need methods built for recurring collection, like debit orders.

What you sell matters too. BNPL has traditionally earned its place on higher-value baskets, but recent research shows it moving into everyday categories, including groceries \[1] [(read our guide to buy now, pay later in South Africa)](https://njiapay.com/resources/blog/should-you-add-buy-now-pay-later-to-your-checkout). Your own checkout data is the best guide here: which methods customers ask for, where they drop off, and which segments you're not converting today.

### **Cost**

Processing fees vary from method to method. Some cost less to accept than cards, while others carry higher merchant fees in exchange for the lift they bring. BNPL is the clearest example: merchants typically pay more per transaction, and accept that cost for the boost in conversion and basket size. Pay by bank works the other way, with bank-app payments also reducing the risk of fraud and chargebacks because customers approve each payment in their own banking app \[11].

Fees are also only one part of a method's cost. Chargebacks, customer support requirements and return rates can all affect the value of the transaction downstream.

There’s also an operational cost. Every new provider usually means another integration to build and maintain, another contract, another settlement schedule and another report to reconcile. For many merchants, that overhead is the real reason they hold back on adding methods.

BNPL illustrates this trade-off well. A study of more than 30 million transactions at a major European fashion retailer found that, compared to other payment methods, BNPL increased sales but also led to a substantial increase in returns \[12]. A method that generates more completed purchases at checkout can also create additional costs after the transaction.

To understand the real commercial impact of a payment method, track its performance beyond the initial conversion:

- Conversion rate
- Transaction fees
- Chargebacks
- Return rates
- Customer support costs
- Integration and maintenance time
- Reconciliation effort

The question isn't simply "Will this payment method increase conversion?" It's "What is the total commercial impact of this payment method once the transaction and its downstream costs are accounted for?"

## **Why shouldn't you rely on card payments alone?**

Cards still sit at the centre of most South African checkouts. But a checkout that leans only on card payments (especially through a single payment provider) is betting its entire first impression on one payment rail working perfectly, every time.

It usually doesn't. Q1 2026 data from a South African payments platform shows that nearly one in four online card payment attempts in South Africa don't convert into a successful transaction \[9]. Cards aren't a broken technology, but the online card checkout flow stacks several friction points on top of each other, and each one is a place where a transaction can fail and your customer can drop off. The main culprits are:

- **Declined transactions:** card network and bank outages, insufficient funds, expired cards and bank fraud flags.
- **Checkout design friction:** too many redirects, slow-loading pages, session timeouts and flows that aren't built for mobile.
- **Security anxiety:** unexpected pop-ups or redirect screens during checkout read as red flags to South African shoppers, and some will abandon a purchase the moment something looks off, even when the transaction is legitimate.
- **Payday timing:** failed payments due to insufficient funds peak on the 1st of the month, when recurring subscriptions and debit orders try to collect at once. Failure rates stay elevated for the first week before dropping off by mid-month \[13].
- **Peak-day strain:** high-volume days carry their own risk. On Black Friday 2025, FNB customers reported errors with card payment authentication for much of the morning \[14]. FNB attributed the intermittent failures to extraordinarily high transaction volumes, on one of the busiest shopping days of the year \[15].

None of these are reasons to avoid cards. They're reasons not to rely on cards alone.

## **Where to start**

Which methods are worth adding depends on who your customers are and what you sell. Start with your own checkout data: where shoppers drop off, which segments you aren't converting yet, and what a new method would cost once fees, chargebacks and returns are counted.

## **How NjiaPay helps**

You don’t have to manage that complexity provider by provider. NjiaPay is a payment orchestration platform for South African online businesses. It sits above your payment providers and connects your checkout to multiple payment methods and providers through a single integration, so you can offer the methods your customers want, add redundancy across providers, and manage all of it from one central place instead of stitching together separate dashboards.

[**\[Get in touch\]**](https://njiapay.com/contact) to see how much revenue a more reliable checkout could recover for you.

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## **Frequently asked questions**

### **What is the most popular online payment method in South Africa?**

Cards are still the most widely used, but digital wallets are catching up quickly. 57.5% of South African consumers tried a digital wallet for the first time in the past year \[1].

### **What is pay by bank?**

Pay by bank lets customers pay straight from their bank account without a card. It covers instant EFT services like Ozow and PayFast EFT, as well as **bank-app payments** like Capitec Pay and Absa Pay, where the customer approves the payment in their own banking app \[2].

### **How many payment methods should an online store offer?**

Support enough methods to cover how your customers pay, but keep the options shown at checkout focused. Research from TrueLayer **with UK shoppers** suggests choosing the four or five methods that suit the largest share of your customers, as many shoppers feel overwhelmed by more than five \[10].

### **Does buy now, pay later increase sales?**

Often, yes. Research on more than 30 million transactions at a European fashion retailer found BNPL increased sales compared to other payment methods, but also led to a substantial rise in returns \[12]. BNPL also tends to carry higher merchant fees, so track its total cost, not just conversion.

### **Why do online card payments fail in South Africa?**

The most common causes are insufficient funds, invalid or mistyped card details, exceeded limits, bank declines and abandonment during 3D Secure authentication \[9]. Failures due to insufficient funds peak on the 1st of the month, when debit orders collect before salaries clear \[13].

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## **Sources**

1. Stitch, [How South Africans Shop in 2026](https://consumer-report-2026.stitch.money/) (2026 Consumer Payments Report)
2. Absa, [Absa launches Absa Pay for seamless and safer online retail cardless transactions](https://www.absa.co.za/media-centre/press-statements/2024/absa-launches-absa-pay-for-seamless-and-safer-online-retail-cardless-transactions/) (July 2024)
3. ITWeb, [Second time lucky for MTN MoMo in SA](https://itweb.co.za/article/second-time-lucky-for-mtn-momo-in-sa/j5alr7QAPyB7pYQk) (April 2025)
4. Frontier Fintech, [GPS #34](https://frontierfintech.substack.com/p/frontier-fintech-gps-34-may-28th) (May 2025)
5. EBANX, [EBANX launches integration with Capitec Pay](https://business.ebanx.com/en/press-room/press-releases/ebanx-launches-integration-with-capitec-pay) (September 2025)
6. ECDB, [South African ecommerce market data](https://ecdb.com/resources/sample-data/market/za/all) (2024 data)
7. Baymard Institute, [Cart abandonment rate statistics](https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate) (updated September 2025)
8. World Wide Worx, [SA online retail passes 6% of total retail](https://www.worldwideworx.com/?p=928) (May 2024)
9. Stitch, [Why smart routing is essential to combat card payment failure in South Africa](https://stitch.money/blog/why-smart-routing-is-essential-to-combat-card-payment-failure-in-south-africa) (August 2026)
10. British Retail Consortium, [4 ecommerce payment experience trends you need to know](https://brc.org.uk/news/finance/4-ecommerce-payment-experience-trends-you-need-to-know) (TrueLayer research)
11. Payfast, [Accept Absa Pay payments online with Payfast by Network](https://payfast.io/blog/accept-absa-pay-payments-online-with-payfast-by-network/)
12. University of Cologne, [The impact of "Buy Now, Pay Later" on customer shopping behavior in online retail](https://marketing.uni-koeln.de/en/marketing-strategy-consortium-2024/?id=68861) (2024)
13. Stitch, [The hidden cost of payment failure for South African ecommerce businesses](https://stitch.money/blog/the-hidden-cost-of-payment-failure-for-south-african-e-commerce-businesses) (May 2026)
14. Stuff, [FNB faces widespread outage on Black Friday](https://stuff.co.za/2025/11/28/fnb-faces-widespread-outage-on-black-friday/) (November 2025)
15. ITWeb, [Black Friday traffic sees FNB app glitch](https://www.itweb.co.za/article/black-friday-traffic-sees-fnb-app-glitch/DZQ58MV85LovzXy2) (November 2025)
16. TechCentral, [ MTN MoMo in South Africa](https://techcentral.co.za/mtn-momo-fintech-battle-south-africa/250873/) (2024)