Walk into any Pick n Pay, Woolworths, or Checkers in Johannesburg, Cape Town, or Durban today and you will notice something that would have seemed improbable just five years ago: the majority of customers tap their cards rather than insert them. Contactless payments have moved from novelty to norm across South Africa, and the trend is accelerating across the broader continent. In 2024, the story of African payments is being rewritten by a small antenna embedded in a plastic card.
Contactless Becomes the Default
Mastercard’s 2024 Africa Payments Report revealed that contactless transactions in South Africa grew by 43 per cent year-on-year, with tap-and-go now accounting for more than 65 per cent of all in-store card transactions at major retailers. Visa reported similar figures, noting that over 85 per cent of face-to-face Visa transactions in South Africa are now contactless. The speed is remarkable: in 2019, that number sat below 20 per cent.
The drivers are familiar but powerful. COVID-19 permanently shifted consumer behaviour, terminal infrastructure caught up rapidly, and banks issued contactless-enabled cards as standard. What began as a hygiene measure has become a preference rooted in convenience. Consumers expect the tap experience, and merchants who cannot offer it risk losing custom.
Beyond South Africa: Urban Growth Corridors
Elsewhere on the continent, contactless adoption follows a predictable pattern: it takes root in capital cities and commercial hubs before spreading outward. Lagos has seen strong growth following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s cashless policy push, with Interswitch and NIBSS reporting that contactless-capable terminals doubled between 2023 and 2024. Nairobi’s retail corridor along Moi Avenue and Westlands is increasingly tap-friendly, supported by Equity Bank and KCB’s contactless card programmes.
Kigali continues to punch above its weight. Rwanda’s deliberate digital-first governance strategy means that contactless acceptance is widespread in the capital, and the government’s Vision 2050 roadmap includes provisions for universal electronic payment acceptance. Ghana’s Accra and Kumasi are similarly progressing, driven by fintech partnerships between telcos and traditional banks.
The QR vs NFC Debate
Africa’s contactless story is complicated by a parallel technology: QR code payments. In markets where smartphone penetration outpaces card issuance, QR codes offer a lower-cost entry point. Scan-to-pay services like SnapScan and Zapper in South Africa, and various mobile money QR integrations in East Africa, present merchants with an alternative that requires no expensive terminal hardware.
The debate is not truly either-or. NFC-based contactless cards offer speed, reliability, and offline capability that QR codes cannot match. A tap transaction completes in under half a second; a QR payment requires unlocking a phone, opening an app, scanning, and confirming. For high-throughput retail environments, NFC remains superior. For informal traders and spaza shops, QR codes fill a genuine gap. The most successful payment ecosystems in 2024 are those that support both.
The Rural Infrastructure Challenge
Despite the urban success story, contactless penetration drops sharply outside metropolitan areas. In South Africa’s rural provinces, card acceptance remains limited. The Eastern Cape, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga still have vast areas where cash is the only viable payment method. Terminal deployment costs, unreliable connectivity, and low transaction volumes make the business case difficult for acquiring banks.
Across the continent, the challenge is even steeper. Only an estimated 12 per cent of retail outlets in sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa have any form of electronic payment acceptance. Solving this requires creative approaches: low-cost Android-based POS terminals, satellite connectivity solutions, and merchant aggregation models that spread costs across multiple small traders.
What 2025 Will Bring
Several trends point to continued acceleration. Dual-interface cards, which support both contact and contactless transactions, are becoming the default specification for new card orders across the continent. Banks that previously issued contact-only EMV chips are now upgrading their entire portfolios. At Cardzgroup Africa, our order books reflect this shift: over 90 per cent of new card programmes specify contactless capability.
Wearable form factors are gaining traction as well. Payment-enabled wristbands at events and festivals, NFC keyfobs for transit, and even payment rings are moving from pilot to production. The underlying technology is identical to a contactless card, but the form factor opens new use cases and customer experiences.
The trajectory is clear. Contactless is not a feature; it is the foundation of modern African payments. The remaining challenge is ensuring that this convenience reaches every corner of the continent, not just its gleaming urban centres.