The company, which owns gambling platform Betway, says the ZAR stablecoin aims to reduce the costs of traditional bank payments. From Moneyweb.
South Africans now have a new ZAR stablecoin to pay their bills and save on traditional bank fees.
New York-listed Super Group, through its South African-licensed subsidiary Super Money, has announced the launch of ZAR Supercoin – a digital rand stablecoin backed 1:1 with actual rands that can be redeemed instantly.
Super Group is the company behind online betting platform Betway.
Read: Inside Betway, SA’s online betting behemoth
Asked if the new stablecoin is aimed at making it easier for gamblers to load their wallets with digital cash, Super Money SA managing director Warren Ross said that the real benefit is to save on bank costs.
Payments are free for Supercoin users, whereas banks are charging R1 or more for small transactions such as purchases of airtime, bus tickets and pre-paid electricity.
Ross says the Super Money wallet will eventually be integrated into the Betway app.
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Stablecoin users will be subject to Know Your Customer (KYC) verifications, while the underlying blockchain engine ensures full audit trails.
Super Money holds Category I and II Crypto Asset Service Provider (Casp) licences with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), and is required to identify every receiving and sending wallet. For some gamblers, that may be a little too much scrutiny.
Speaking at a recent results presentation, Super Group CEO Neal Menashe, said the company’s push into the crypto space would start in SA to address high payment processing fees and leverage the growing popularity of crypto. It will also enhance user experience for Betway sportsbook users.
The ZAR Supercoin will initially be tradeable on crypto exchange Luno, with more exchanges to be added later.
The stablecoin will be followed by the Supercoin digital wallet, which will open it up to a vast network of merchants and fintech partners for payments, remittances and top-ups.
Ross says the digital wallet, once operational, will allow users to withdraw cash from ATMs and purchase goods through virtually any point of sale terminal.
Operating model
If transactions are free, how does Super Money make a profit?
Like all stablecoin issuers, funds are invested in yield-earning instruments such as treasuries and money market funds.
The world’s largest stablecoin, Tether, made a profit of $13 billion in 2024, more than double the profit reported by BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager.
In Tether’s case, this was done with a staff of around 100, making it the world’s most profitable company per employee.
Across Africa, US dollar stablecoin transaction volumes now exceed $100 billion a year, a point raised this week at the Africa Stablecoin Summit in Johannesburg, where regulators are showing concern over the potential for the ‘dollarisation’ of their economies via stablecoins as Africans ditch weak local currencies for stronger ones like the USD.
Ditching banks too
Stablecoins grew out of the crypto space, where speculators in bitcoin and other crypto assets wanted a way to exit their positions into something more stable, such as US dollar-backed Tether or USDC, the two market leaders, without having to re-enter the banking system. The use cases multiplied from there to remittances, peer-to-peer transfers, and for international trade.
By way of example, stablecoin transfers cost around 1%, while bank remittances average about 7% in Africa, according to the World Bank.
This is not the first ZAR stablecoin in SA. ZARP, with backing from Old Mutual, has been around for several years and recent stats show about R63 million in circulation. Another rand stablecoin is yZAR, issued by Mesh Trade, a digital marketplace for tokenised real-world assets.
Ross says this latest addition to the stablecoin lineup comes with a few unique benefits:
- The backing of the Super Group, which has a market cap of about $6.3 billion (R108 billion);
- The regulatory and compliance ‘gold standards’ that come with a New York Stock Exchange listing; and
- The security of knowing that all ZAR Supercoins are deposited with Absa and fall under the regulatory oversight of the FSCA.
“ZAR Supercoin is designed to bring the power of digital money and blockchain into everyday South African life,” says Ross. “Whether you’re paying for groceries, sending money to family, or running a small business, it’s fast, secure, and always backed by the rand.
“We’re making stablecoins simple, useful, and accessible, because we believe financial freedom should be for everyone.”
ZAR stablecoins have had a slow start in SA, but that may be about to change once users become accustomed to the obvious benefits of low costs and near-instant transfers anywhere in the world. Some importers have been able to purchase goods in China with ZAR stablecoins which can then be converted to US dollar-backed stablecoins at minimal cost.
While Mesh Trade offers yields around 5% on yZAR, the ZAR Supercoin will not offer yield, but will provide other value-added services when users buy airtime and other products.
What does the market say?
Comments Faadil Moti, CEO of crypto and payments company 80eight: “[The launch of ZAR Supercoin] creates trust and the truth is people latch on to brands, and the market is bigger than we know. We’ll definitely see more players, including 80eight, enter the space rapidly.”
“Good for them,” says another crypto CEO, who asked not to be named. “I like to see adoption and more people using blockchain.
“Although betting has a bad reputation with the more official crowd it is a massively growing industry in SA and also globally with more digital sports, gaming and online entertainment.”
Read: Online betting market explodes to twice the size of casinos
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The ZAR Supercoin will be deployed on the Solana blockchain, using the Fireblocks Tokenisation Engine to mint, burn, and manage the entire smart contract lifecycle. The Fireblocks wallet will be used for safe custody of the coins, and Chainalysis Sentinel will monitor the ZAR Supercoin ecosystem for compliance.
Will it help reduce costs for the township economy? It should, says Ross, as smartphones and the high costs of dealing through the banks become apparent.
