South Africa leads the way in the digitisation of B2B payments on the continent, according to a latest study.
According to a report by business payment platform Duplo, electronic transfers made up over 82% of the $994 billion of business-to-business transactions in South Africa.
The report explored survey data from 1,218 contributors from Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya, from a diverse range of companies. It reflected different ages, sizes, revenues, and sectors.
South Africa also led the way in the speed of processing invoices. It has a slender lead, with 39.9% of respondents stating that it typically takes a day or less to process invoices compared with Nigeria’s 39.7%.
When it comes to payment automation, Kenya led the way with 83.4% of respondents stating that their payment system was either semi-automated or fully automated, compared to Nigeria (79.9%), South Africa (71.7%), and Ghana (67.2%).
“Despite various challenges, the future of B2B payments in Africa is set for dynamic growth and innovation, signalling a new era of opportunities and expansion for the continent’s business ecosystem. The opportunity to automate accounts payable and receivable and transform other aspects of the B2B payments process offers great potential to reduce payment delays, enhance cash flow and drive growth for businesses across the continent,” said Yele Oyekola, CEO and co-founder of Duplo.
“The increased adoption of digital solutions also implies a shift in workplace dynamics and positions finance professionals to add more value to their organisations. We are looking forward to playing a major role in the realisation of these opportunities and the delivery of technology solutions to support growth for businesses in Africa.”
South Africa has been actively pushing towards the digitisation of its payment systems. In March, Payshap, an interbank, and real-time digital payments service built as a collaborative effort between Bankserv, a clearing house owned by South African commercial banks, and the South Africa Reserve Bank, was launched.
