ZARU, issued by BlockTower South Africa under FSCA licence FSP 55172, recorded a monthly checkout value of R1,276,650 in September 2026, up from R484,207 in June. That represents a 2.64-fold increase over four months, with September running 10.6% ahead of August, suggesting the growth curve has not flattened. A cashback campaign run through Luno Pay, and growing workplace adoption perks, appear to have catalysed the initial surge; MoneyBadger’s data indicates momentum continued after those programmes launched.

ZARU was introduced in February 2026 through a consortium structure that includes BlockTower, Luno, EasyEquities, Lesaka and Sanlam Specialised Asset Management. Sanlam manages the underlying rand reserves, held at Standard Bank and Absa. Moore Johannesburg conducts monthly agreed-upon procedures on those reserves, with reports published publicly. That institutional architecture is deliberate: ZARU is positioned as an institutional-grade stablecoin, with qualified clients able to mint and redeem directly through BlockTower’s issuance platform.

ZARsc, issued by Supercoin under FSCA licence FSP 53458 and backed by NYSE-listed Super Group, is at an earlier stage of retail adoption. It recorded R4,408 in MoneyBadger checkout value during September, up 286.9% from August’s low base, and R40,216 cumulatively through 30 September. Supercoin has prioritised exchange listings in its first year, including VALR, Luno, OVEX and the Solana-based Orca. A consumer wallet is planned for early 2027.

The broader MoneyBadger network figures give context. Total payment volume across the network nearly doubled in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, while overall rand value grew 176%. Active merchant locations expanded from 57 in August 2025 to 2,927 a year later. Within that network, Bitcoin accounted for 39.9% of checkout spending in 2026 to date, USDT took 36.1%, and ZARU claimed 7.7%. Combined, the two stablecoins represented roughly 44% of total transaction value, a figure that reflects the payment-use case rather than speculative trading.

The checkout mechanics help explain the traction. Half of all payments on the network are under R200, and 87% are under R1,000. A median scan-to-paid time of 35 seconds or less was recorded in the August 2026 benchmark. For low-value, high-frequency retail transactions, price volatility is a practical problem rather than an abstract one, which is why rand-pegged instruments have an obvious functional advantage over Bitcoin at the till.

Aleks Andjelopolj, chief commercial officer of BlockTower, said the ZARU adoption figures illustrated how institutions could build rewards programmes and employee perks on top of the stablecoin infrastructure. “That is our core invitation to fintech, domestic payment, capital market, cross-border settlement and retail institutions and teams,” he said.

Both issuers operate under FSCA oversight as Crypto Asset Service Providers, a category that has gained clearer definition in South Africa following the regulator’s decision to bring crypto assets under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act. The FSCA framework does not grant these tokens the status of legal tender; they remain digital assets, and redemption into bank funds depends on each issuer’s channels.

Globally, US dollar stablecoins dominate retail and institutional flows, with USDT and USDC commanding the vast majority of stablecoin transaction volume. Rand-denominated instruments face a structurally smaller addressable market, but they sidestep the foreign-exchange risk and regulatory friction that dollar stablecoins introduce for South African consumers and merchants settling in rand. The merchant model MoneyBadger operates, where stores receive rand settlement regardless of which token the customer tenders, keeps the foreign-currency question off the merchant’s balance sheet entirely.

The next milestones to watch are the rollout of Supercoin’s consumer wallet, the expansion of Luno Pay’s cashback campaigns to additional retail partners, and whether ZARU’s planned launches across other African and Asia-Pacific markets add cross-border settlement volumes to the retail numbers already on the board.

AI level 1 of 5: written by Darlyn Ho; AI helped with tone, structure or wording; edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean

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The Fintech Times