Consumers trust payment systems that work in a familiar way, irrespective of gateway, payment method, or digital wallet, says Rahul Jain, CEO and co-founder of Peach Payments
In this article, Peach Payments CEO Rahul Jain argues that consistency across every payment method, from cards and PayShap to mobile money, is the only real way merchants can protect revenue and keep customer trust intact.
The recently released Online Retail in South Africa 2026 study found that card declines are now a bigger cart-abandonment factor than shipping fees.
This puts a familiar customer experience challenge in the spotlight: how do businesses create genuinely frictionless customer journeys?
The study by World Wide Worx, Mastercard, Peach Payments and Ask Africa found the leading causes of failed payments are checkout/website error (60.7%), insufficient funds (50.7%) and customer abandonment mid-authentication (50.7%).
“Checkout and authentication flow, not issuer behaviour, is where the money is actually being lost,” said author Arthur Goldstuck.
For payments businesses, this conversation is relevant because when something goes wrong at the checkout stage, the resulting friction is often attributed to the payment provider. Customers don’t care why this happened and they don’t care which payment rail, gateway, wallet, or acquiring partner sits behind a transaction. They just care that the payment failed.
Does it feel ‘local’?
In Africa, where customers transact in so many diverse ways, delivering seamless experiences is far from simple.
First, there is a tremendous volume of transactions to deal with. The digital payments economy in Africa is forecast to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030.
In addition, what were once considered ‘alternative payment methods’ are now becoming commonplace ways consumers transact in some countries.
In South Africa for instance, while debit cards (99.0%) and credit cards (98.5%) are near-universal, EFT/bank transfer follow close behind at 89.1%. Buy now, pay later is offered by 54.7% of retailers. Well over a quarter of retailers offer rewards/vouchers/gift cards (38.3%), digital wallets (36.8%) and QR payments (27.9%). One-click checkout using saved card details (17.9%) and payment links (12.4%) are offered by a minority. PayShap is available at 6.5% of retailers.
In Kenya, mobile money is the dominant payment method, led overwhelmingly by M-Pesa. Earlier this year, Safaricom announced that M-Pesa reached a major milestone of 40 million monthly active customers in Kenya alone. That is around 70% of the population.
In Mauritius, Bank of Mauritius figures show that mobile banking and mobile payment transactions increased from approximately 11.1 million in June 2025 to 12.6 million in June 2026. Over the same period, internet banking transactions rose from around 506,000 to 849,000. The number of mobile banking and mobile payment subscribers also increased from approximately 1.91 million to 2.25 million.
For global businesses, consistency means making every payment experience feel ‘local’. It shouldn’t matter if the consumer is in South Africa, Kenya or Mauritius. A consumer must be able to choose how they want to pay, and irrespective of method, still have a simple, reliable and predictable experience with the merchant’s brand.
Online meets offline
One way to deliver this consistency is by making sure the options available online are also available in-store. Whether a consumer walks into a physical store or shops online, the merchant must deliver the same experience.
Equally, there’s value in monitoring customer feedback and support tickets. This will identify common pain points and is especially relevant in light of artificial intelligence (AI) being used more broadly by merchants.
Africa-wide, checkout behaviour is undergoing a fundamental shift as AI moves from search to transaction processing. AI agents and agentic commerce, where the customer may not even be directly involved in the transaction, pose the next big challenge to consistency. In the very near future, an agent will make purchasing decisions and handle payment on a customer’s behalf. (The pilot projects are already under way in a handful of African countries.) A failed or disputed transaction will be even more emotionally fraught for the consumer, and erode trust.
Consider how much payments have changed in a relatively short space of time. Not so long ago, cash was the default. Today, contactless payments and digital wallets have become part of everyday life. The lesson here is that payments never really stand still. And while systems under the hood will adapt, for the shopper, consistency must come first. It’s one of the best ways merchants can safeguard trust and protect revenue.
About the author:
Rahul Jain is CEO and co-founder of Peach Payments – a fast-growing African payment solution provider (PSP).
