Is South Africa’s digital rand pilot progress or a PR stunt?

Did you know that the South African Reserve Bank has been testing the idea of a digital rand? Yep, a local-is-lekker SA-born-and-raised crypto. Not one you can spend at Checkers yet, mind you, more like behind-the-scenes infrastructure and sandbox experiments with the banks. So, is this technical progress, or are we being served fintech theatre with a fancy PDF?

South Africa has run credible wholesale experiments with banks and market infrastructure, yet there is no retail wallet pilot, merchant trials, or go-live date. The work is technical progress, not product launch.

What has actually happened?

Project Khokha 1 started in 2018, and it's basically a nerdy stress test to see if banks could settle high-value payments using blockchain. The verdict? They could! It worked, and no one lost power or set fire to the system.

Then came Project Khokha 2 in 2022, which added asset tokens, industry stablecoins, and some proper collaborations with SA banks and exchanges. This was all a prototype without any promises. Think of it like a science fair for fintech, and not a "we are ready for you, world" full-blown launch.

SARB also took part in Project Dunbar with the Bank for International Settlements, alongside Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia. They built a prototype platform for cross-border CBDCs. Spoiler: it worked, kind of, but scaling it across borders is still more complicated than Home Affairs on a lunch break.

The digital rand in your wallet? Not so fast.

SARB opened a retail CBDC feasibility study in May 2021 to explore what a consumer version of the digital rand might look like. You know, the kind of people who could realistically spend. That’s still deep in the research phase. There’s no wallet, app, or any sign that you’ll be buying airtime with CBDC any time soon.

The IMF put it bluntly this year: after two local pilots and one international run, SA pressed pause on rolling out any domestic retail CBDC. Cross-border projects are still on the table, but retail coin for the average oke? Not yet.

The Reserve Bank’s current payments roadmap (released in April) focuses more on improving digital rails like PayShap and EFTs that real people use. Loosely, this means that there's no digital rand pilot in sight.

Keep the retail hype in check. The Reserve Bank is still doing homework, while the wholesale plumbing gets some well-deserved lab time.

Progress or PR?

There’s been real movement on the back-end: full-on blockchain tests, cross-border experiments with central banks, and published reports anyone can read.

What hasn’t happened? A real-world test involving South African shoppers, spaza stores, or payment apps.

Wholesale CBDC experiments taught South Africa how tokenised money and assets could settle safely. Retail CBDC remains a policy option on the shelf, not a product in your wallet.

It’s not a PR stunt; it’s just not for you (yet). SARB is building credibility and pipelines in the background. The coin you can spend is still only vibes and theory. Until then, you’ll have to settle for good old Rands... and maybe a working PayShap link.