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South Africa's eZAR rand stablecoin opens to the public

South Africa's eZAR rand stablecoin opens to the public

Money Moves

A rand-backed token that pays out money market returns moves from a year-long pilot to an open partner network

Today: eZAR opens its network to the public

Overview

Updated 48 minutes ago

For a year, eZAR moved rands between wallets inside a closed pilot. On 2 November it opened to the public, with R303 million of tokens already in circulation and any financial institution able to plug the currency into its own branded wallet.

The token holds a R1 peg and pays out returns earned by investing its reserves in a Ninety One money market fund. That combination, a payments stablecoin that also yields, is unusual enough that most regulators would not classify it as a stablecoin at all.

Why it matters

If the partner model works, South Africans could move rands in seconds without a bank and earn interest on the balance.

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Key Indicators

R303M
eZAR tokens in circulation
Tokens issued and held across partner wallets as at 30 October 2026.
R1.00
Target redemption value
The peg the token is designed to hold, subject to available liquidity.
10
Rand stablecoins in existence
Count from Blockhead's survey of the South African market, including crypto-backed and yield-bearing variants.
12 months
Pilot period before launch
eZAR ran with real money in real wallets before opening to new partners.

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People Involved

SE
Sean Emery
Chief executive of eZAR
Leading the network as it opens to outside partners
AD
Adam Duxbury
Head of digital assets at Ninety One
Managing the reserve strategy behind the token
KB
Killy Bacela
General manager of business incubation and innovation at AVBOB Financial Services
Founding partner and liquidity provider
PM
Paul Mitchell
Analyst and author of a survey of South African stablecoins
Tracking ten rand-denominated tokens

Organizations Involved

LT
eZAR Ltd
Stablecoin issuer and technology provider
Operating the open network

The authorised financial services provider that runs eZAR's technology and core services.
NO
Ninety One
Asset manager
Manages the reserves backing eZAR

The asset manager investing eZAR's reserves, mostly in its own money market fund.
FS
AVBOB Financial Services
Financial services subsidiary
Founding partner and liquidity partner

The financial arm of insurer AVBOB, acting as lead institution and liquidity backstop for eZAR.
Block Markets Africa
Block Markets Africa
Technology company
Parent company of eZAR

The parent company that contributed technical work to the Reserve Bank's Project Khokha 2.
SA
South African Reserve Bank
Central bank
Ran the experiments eZAR's design descends from

The central bank whose Project Khokha trials produced the technical groundwork for eZAR.

Timeline

2018 November 2026

8 events Latest: Today
Tap a bar to jump to that date

  1. eZAR opens its network to the public

    Today Launch

    Outside institutions can now offer branded wallets; transfers between wallets are free.

  2. eZAR reports R303 million of tokens in circulation

    Milestone

    The figure covers tokens issued and held across partner wallets.

  3. Treasury signals rewrite of cross-border crypto rules

    Regulation

    Finance minister Enoch Godongwana said the draft would be redone with a different approach.

  4. Draft crypto manual threatens cross-border business payments

    Regulation

    Proposed rules would bar South African companies from moving crypto across borders.

  5. Rival rand stablecoin ZARU launches

    Competition

    BlockTower's ZARU launched with Standard Bank holding reserves onshore.

  6. eZAR begins closed pilot with AVBOB clients

    Pilot

    Real money moved through real wallets while the operating model was built.

  7. Project Khokha 2 extends the work to tokenised assets

    Research

    Block Markets Africa contributed technical work; eZAR later grew from the follow-on phase.

  8. Reserve Bank tests wholesale settlement on a shared ledger

    Research

    Project Khokha ran a proof of concept for interbank settlement with South African banks.

Scenarios

1

A national retailer or insurer launches a branded eZAR wallet

Possible Resolves by Q2 2027

Discussed by: eZAR's own partner pitch and Blockhead analyst Paul Mitchell

The whole design assumes outside institutions will want their own wallet on shared rails. eZAR names neobanks, retailers, insurers and payments companies as targets. The test is whether one of them, outside the three founding partners, puts its brand on a wallet and starts moving customer money through it. That requires education more than engineering: most of these firms are not crypto-native.

2

Treasury's second draft exempts reserve-backed rand stablecoins from capital-flow rules

Likely Resolves by Q1 2027

Discussed by: Zarp co-founder Simon Dingle and rand stablecoin issuers quoted by TechCentral

The August draft would have treated cross-border crypto movement as a capital flow and barred companies from moving crypto out of the country. Godongwana told parliament in October that Treasury would take a different approach, assessing transactions for legitimacy and tax compliance instead of requiring pre-approval. Issuers want the second draft to say plainly that a fully reserve-backed rand token is not capital leaving the country.

3

Regulators treat yield-bearing stablecoins as securities

Uncertain Resolves by End of 2027

Discussed by: Paul Mitchell, who notes most jurisdictions bar payment stablecoins from paying yield

eZAR pays holders a share of money market returns, which is the feature that distinguishes it from every other rand token and the feature most likely to attract a regulatory reclassification. If the Financial Sector Conduct Authority decides a token that distributes investment returns is a security or a collective investment scheme, eZAR would have to restructure or register. The company already discloses that holders have no direct claim on the underlying fund.

4

eZAR circulation passes R1 billion

Possible Resolves by Nov 2, 2027

Discussed by: No public forecast; this is the scale test implied by the partner model

The token reached R303 million during a closed pilot with one insurer's clients. Getting to R1 billion means either a large partner bringing an existing customer base or heavy retail adoption through wallets. Free transfers help; the yield helps more. The constraint is that eZAR is not legal tender, not a bank deposit and not guaranteed, which limits how much of a customer's balance a partner will want to park there.

Historical Context

3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.

2018

Project Khokha (2018)

The South African Reserve Bank ran a proof of concept with seven commercial banks to settle wholesale payments on a distributed ledger. It was a closed, bank-only trial with no consumer-facing currency. A second phase in 2022 moved on to tokenised bonds and privacy controls.

Then

The trials showed the technology could handle interbank settlement at realistic volumes.

Now

They left behind designs, technical contributors and a template for permissioned, institution-only digital money. eZAR is a commercial descendant.

Why this matters now

eZAR's permissioned blockchain and multi-issuer structure come directly from this work, which is why it looks more like bank infrastructure than a crypto token.

June 2019 - January 2022

Libra and Diem (2019-2022)

Facebook announced Libra, a stablecoin governed by a consortium of large companies, in June 2019. Regulators in the United States and Europe objected almost immediately, and founding members including PayPal, Visa and Mastercard withdrew. The project was renamed Diem in December 2020 and wound down in January 2022, selling its assets to Silvergate Bank.

Then

The consortium model collapsed under political pressure before a single coin launched.

Now

It established that a multi-partner stablecoin needs regulatory clarity before partners will commit, and that brand-name backers leave when the pressure rises.

Why this matters now

eZAR is a smaller, domestic version of the same idea: shared rails, many issuers, returns split among partners. Its survival depends on South African regulators being more accommodating than Libra's were.

March 2007

M-Pesa in Kenya (2007)

Safaricom launched a phone-based money transfer service in Kenya, aimed at people without bank accounts. It grew into the country's dominant payments rail, with agents handling cash in and out across the country.

Then

Regulators initially worried about money laundering and whether Safaricom was acting like a bank.

Now

Mobile wallet money became normal in much of East Africa, and the model spread across the continent.

Why this matters now

It is the precedent for the claim that money is moving from accounts to wallets in Africa, and for the regulatory pattern where a payments innovation is accommodated after it has already reached scale.

Sources

(7)
+1
ITWeb Blockhead TechCentral ZARU Luno IFWG TechCentral