The Cybersecurity, Capacity Development, and Financial Inclusion project, or CyberFI, brings together a robust, transparent community of practitioners and researchers working on digital financial inclusion. This series focuses on understanding financial inclusion ecosystems on their own terms—what countries are doing, what is working, and what isn’t. Six country case studies help capture the diversity of financial markets on the African continent: South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana, and Zimbabwe.
Introduction
South Africa, as a middle-income country and a member of the Group of Twenty (G20), occupies a unique position among African states. Its robust and well-developed financial and information technology sectors ensure that it serves as a leading financial hub in Africa, with around $1 trillion in annual cross-border banking transactions (excluding remittances).1 Regrettably, the fruits of this financial and digital sophistication are being undermined by high levels of physical, political, and digital risk. Critically, South Africa’s approach and commitment to cybersecurity trails several smaller and less-developed African states.
South Africa’s lack of…
