Access isn’t the same as usable.
South Africa has high formal financial access. What happens once someone is inside your app or branch flow is a separate question — and it’s the one that decides whether they stay.
What the data actually shows
According to FinMark Trust’s FinScope Consumer South Africa 2025 survey, 89% of South African adults now have a bank account (40.8 million people) — access is genuinely high. But 46% of consumers who used a bank in the past year hit a problem with it, and almost one in three of them didn’t even report the issue. Source: FinScope Consumer South Africa 2025, FinMark Trust.
Statistics South Africa’s 2022 Census recorded national disability prevalence at 6.0% of the population. Source: Census 2022 Statistical Release, Stats SA. At that scale, designing for disability isn’t a niche accommodation — it’s a normal part of designing for your actual customer base.
We cite only what these two sources actually say — no claim here is ours to invent.
Where financial products lose people
Language
South Africa has 12 official languages. A form or KYC flow written in one of them can be the difference between a completed application and an abandoned one.
KYC & onboarding friction
Document uploads, address proof, selfie verification — every extra step is a drop-off point, more so for people without a fixed address or a recent utility bill in their name.
Data cost & older devices
Mobile data is expensive relative to income for a large share of South Africans, and not everyone is on a recent phone. Heavy apps and slow flows cost real money to load.
Disability, age & income
Screen readers, low vision, motor impairment, older users less familiar with an app's conventions — none of these are edge cases at population scale.
What we do about it
We audit your product against WCAG 2.2 AA and real usability, and we design and build with these barriers in mind from the start — not as a compliance checklist, but because this is who your customers actually are. We make no promises about legal or regulatory compliance; that’s a conversation for your own legal counsel.