News in Brief

Achieving South Africa’s Cash Ambitions

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has published a position paper outlining its Cash Smart Strategy, which aims to reduce the cost of cash, ensure it is broadly and equitably accessible across urban and rural areas and promote the ethical, secure and accountable stewardship of physical currency.

SARB starts from the position that cash and digital payments are not direct substitutes for each other; rather, they are complementary instruments within a hybrid payment ecosystem.

Cash is becoming more difficult to manage as payment behaviour undermines the traditional economics of cash, making it more expensive and less accessible as the distribution channels fragment. It is the most vulnerable in society who are affected most by these changes.