Mastercard Accelerates the Path Toward Real-Time Card Payments

Instant and secure payments can act as a multiplier to help businesses and economies thrive and grow. To further Mastercard’s vision of bringing immediacy to card payments, the company announced that South Africa will be the first market in the world to benefit from the security and speed of immediate Mastercard card payments. Through product innovations, enhancements to its network and strategic partnerships, Mastercard will enable acquiring banks to process real-time card payments.

For the first time, all merchants in South Africa who accept Mastercard payments will receive faster payouts, empowering businesses with better cashflow management and faster funds availability. This, in turn, provides merchants with more visibility and control over their funds, frees up capital and increases the velocity of money in the economy, driving growth and innovation. In the future, Mastercard will enable issuing banks in South Africa – and around the globe – to process real-time card payments, empowering consumers with increased transparency, faster payments, and real-time insights into their funds.

As part of Mastercard’s efforts to bring cutting-edge payments technology to the ecosystem, the company will roll out new standards and solutions, which will accelerate the processing speed for card transactions. The enhancements and new standards will enable same-day payouts for South African merchants through the introduction of real-time clearing and more frequent settlement cycles.

This initiative aligns with the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) National Payments System Strategy Vision 2025, which underscores the importance of evolving payment systems to meet the needs of people and businesses to drive financial inclusion. South Africa – where Mastercard laid the groundwork for these changes last year by enhancing its network and enabling transactions to be processed locally – will be Mastercard’s first market to experience real-time card payments.

To bring its vision of real-time card payments to life, Mastercard is partnering with ACI Worldwide, a leading global payments technology provider. Together with ACI, Mastercard will empower acquirers in South Africa to quickly and easily adopt real-time transaction processing standards.