South Africa has announced a plan to promote the adoption of digital payments which includes analysing stablecoins and blockchain to “improve the lives and livelihoods of marginalised groups”.

Delivering the 2024 national budget on February 21, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana highlighted the need for structural reforms and a focus on improving public financial management.

He also announced an upcoming policy change on crypto assets, specifically for stablecoins, CoinTelegraph reported on February 22.

In 2024, the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group will publish additions to include “stablecoins” as a particular type of crypto asset, he said.

The working group published a crypto regulation paper in June 2021, which will be amended to include stablecoins into the crypto asset class in addition to finalising a diagnostic of the domestic stablecoin landscape.

Furthermore, the Financial Intelligence Centre Act could be amended to require all institutions to report crypto transactions over 49,999 South African rand ($2,650). South Africa will also study the impact of blockchain-based tokenisation on domestic financial markets.

The working group is expected to publish a paper by December 2024 outlining “the policy and regulatory implications of tokenisation and blockchain-based financial market infrastructure.”

The South African government will also run a three-year program in collaboration with Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs and FinMark Trust to conduct four digital payments pilot projects.