South African online retail just passed 10% of national retail spend, and the constraint has shifted from whether a payment gateway can complete a transaction to whether the customer chooses to.

For 20 years, payment security treated bots as the enemy. Agentic commerce just flipped that assumption upside down.

According to the latest findings of the 2025 Online Retail in South Africa report, the sector is set to surpass R130 bn this year. This represents nearly 10% of total retail.

Ahead of the Visa Payments Forum, which took place in Paris on July 1, Visa shared how two foundational shifts (artificial intelligence and stablecoins) are transforming the front-end and back-end of commerce and money movement.

According to PayJustNow, BNPL is evolving into a tool for product discovery, customer acquisition and long-term retail growth.

As more African businesses look beyond their home markets, logistics is playing an increasingly important role in helping them scale regionally and internationally.

Sceptics often view Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) as a debt risk, but South African consumers are using the tool as a sophisticated budgeting strategy.

The rise of AI-driven cyber threats hasn’t rendered passwords obsolete, but it has highlighted the critical need for multi-layered defence-in-depth to protect user accounts.

Stitch has expanded its ecommerce offering with the launch of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) on Stitch Express, enabling South African merchants to offer flexible instalment payments directly at checkout.

South African businesses track inbound payments obsessively; yet payouts often remain a blind spot. As volumes grow, incorrect or manipulated bank details quietly increase fraud and failure risk.