Many account holders will be surprised to discover just how expensive an ‘instant payment’ or ‘real-time payment’ to another person at a different bank really is.
Because a transfer to another bank tends to only reflect the next business day, these types of immediate payments are common when one needs to transfer R5 000 urgently to a family member, or to make an urgent payment for second-hand goods you’ve bought from a neighbourhood WhatsApp group.
Read: R679 a month for a bank account?
These charges are typically not disclosed within the banking app at the time of making the payment, so most customers simply don’t know how much they paid. The reality is that many banks in South Africa charge as much as R50 for an immediate payment.
These payments use an older framework between banks to enable real-time clearing (RTC) or interbank immediate payments. Typically, transactions take less than 60 seconds, but there can be delays.
A new payment solution, PayShap, was launched in 2023 by the then BankservAfrica (now PayInc) as a more cost-effective way to achieve real-time payments between bank accounts.
Read more: https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/beware-banks-steep-instant-payment-charges/
