Quick answer

BankservAfrica clears retail payment instructions between South African banks — EFT, DebiCheck, RTC, PayShap, card switching — and computes net positions per cycle. Those net positions are then submitted to SAMOS for settlement in central-bank money. BankservAfrica does the clearing; SAMOS does the settlement; together they handle nearly every non-cash payment in the country.

What BankservAfrica does

BankservAfrica is Africa's largest automated clearing house. It runs the technology that exchanges payment messages between banks, performs the clearing function (matching and netting), and produces a net obligation per participant for each settlement window.

Payment streams BankservAfrica runs

  • EFT Credit — salaries, supplier payments, bulk credits.
  • EFT Debit — non-authenticated debit orders.
  • DebiCheck — authenticated debit orders.
  • Real-Time Clearing (RTC) — sub-60-second lower-value credits.
  • PayShap — South Africa's modern instant-payment scheme.
  • Card switching — domestic card transactions on Visa, Mastercard, and other schemes.
  • ATM switching — interbank ATM withdrawals.

Where clearing ends and settlement begins

Clearing is the exchange and matching of payment messages plus computation of net positions. Settlement is the actual movement of value between participants' accounts at SARB. BankservAfrica does the clearing; SAMOS does the settlement. The handover happens when BankservAfrica submits net obligations to SAMOS at scheduled windows. See Clearing vs Settlement for the conceptual breakdown.

BankservAfrica's modernisation

BankservAfrica is migrating its messaging to ISO 20022 in lockstep with the SAMOS migration. It is also a candidate operator for elements of the proposed National Payments Utility under Vision 2030+, although the final governance and ownership model are still being decided.

TL;DR

  • BankservAfrica clears; SAMOS settles.
  • Streams: EFT credit/debit, DebiCheck, RTC, PayShap, card, ATM.
  • Net positions per cycle flow into SAMOS at scheduled settlement windows.
  • ISO 20022 migration is a joint effort between BankservAfrica and SARB.

Frequently asked questions

Is BankservAfrica owned by SARB?

No — BankservAfrica is jointly owned by major South African banks, not by SARB.

Does BankservAfrica hold customer funds?

No. BankservAfrica is a clearing infrastructure; it does not hold funds. Funds are held by participant banks and settled via SAMOS.

Does BankservAfrica run PayShap?

Yes — PayShap is operated by BankservAfrica with industry oversight.

What's coming under modernisation?

ISO 20022 messaging, deeper integration with SAMOS RTGS renewal, and a role in the National Payments Utility under discussion.

See also from our Modernization silo: RTGS Renewal Programme: What's Replacing SAMOS? and PayShap vs RTC vs EFT: Choosing the Right Payment Method. For the foundations, return to the SAMOS homepage or browse the full Knowledge Hub.