Press release -
Discovery Bank SpendTrend: Tap-to-pay and virtual cards gain ground with Black Friday shoppers
Johannesburg, 8 December 2025 – Discovery Bank’s Black Friday analysis shows that digital wallets and virtual cards are fast becoming the preferred way for consumers to pay, with nearly two-thirds of in-store card transactions now made via tap-to-pay with smart devices and a third of online spend using virtual cards. This shift highlights how South African shoppers are embracing secure, convenient digital payment methods as part of their everyday shopping experience – and doing so in an environment where lower interest rates and easing inflation are supporting a gradual recovery in spending power.
Hylton Kallner, Discovery Bank CEO commented, “Black Friday is a powerful barometer of consumer trends and economic health. Our SpendTrend Dashboard not only tracks the pulse of South African shoppers in real time, but also highlights how consumers are favouring digital payments, accessing international marketplaces, and tapping into rewards for more value. This year we’ve seen strong growth in card spend and transaction volumes alongside clear signs of disciplined, value-conscious shopping as clients take advantage of lower interest rates and targeted deals to stretch their budgets further.”
Real-time insights with the Discovery Bank SpendTrend dashboard
Discovery Bank once again offered a real-time Black Friday dashboard, providing clients, retailers, and the media with transparent insights into spending trends as they happened. The SpendTrend Dashboard offered a unique view of how, where, and when South Africans shopped, and how payment preferences are evolving.
“Discovery Bank introduced a real-time Black Friday dashboard, providing clients and the market with a clear view of spending trends as they unfold. This approach reflects our focus on digital innovation and is intended to offer retailers useful data about changes in consumer behaviour across payment options, shopping channels, and product categories. By sharing this information, our goal is to help improve understanding of consumer and shopping behaviour as the retail landscape continues to evolve,” says Kallner.
Black Friday spend recovery in a changing rate environment
Black Friday 2025 took place against a backdrop of easing inflation and a series of interest rate cuts after two years of tighter monetary policy. The South African Reserve Bank has reduced the repo rate to 6.75%, bringing the prime lending rate to 10.25%, which, together with lower inflation, is starting to ease pressure on household finances.
Within this context, Discovery Bank’s data shows a clear, though cautious, recovery in consumer activity: higher overall spend, more transactions and smaller average baskets. This is consistent with broader industry commentary, which highlights resilient Black Friday demand supported by recent rate cuts and more optimistic – though still value-focused shoppers.
Additional insights from the SpendTrend analysis
- Online shopping nearly matching in-store: Online spend accounted for 45% of all Black Friday card spend among Discovery Bank clients. Online card transactions were also 45% higher than on a typical last-Friday-of-the-month, underscoring the increasing shift to digital shopping. While in-store volumes grew strongly, online is growing faster.
- Growth in spend and transactions but with smaller baskets: Average transaction sizes declined by 3% in-store and 9% online, indicating that clients are breaking purchases into more, smaller baskets and using deals to stretch their budgets. This points to a positive recovery in activity, with consumers using the breathing room from lower interest rates to manage spend more actively rather than simply increasing basket sizes.
- Black Friday as a “super-charged Payday Friday”: In-store purchase volumes were about 20% higher than a typical last-Friday-of-the-month, positioning Black Friday as the key spending day that amplifies regular payday-weekend behaviour.
- Black Friday becomes a 24-hour event: Only 54% of total online spend occurred during traditional store trading hours (9am–6pm), compared to 77% of in-store spend. This shows a significant share of online spend happening outside normal trading hours, as clients use online channels to secure deals before stores open and to avoid peak-time congestion.
- Everyday and home-focused spending prevails: Food and drink, recreation, and home goods were the top three Black Friday spend categories. Younger clients (under 25) used Black Friday to refresh their wardrobes, with clothing ranking as their second-highest spend category, while older clients focused more on groceries, home, and recreation – mirroring broader market observations that essentials and high-utility items continue to dominate in a cautious recovery.
- International marketplaces gain share: International retailers such as Shein and Temu continued to grow in popularity, with South African shoppers mixing international and local e-commerce platforms to access competitively priced imported goods and cross-border deals.
- Value-seeking and disciplined shopping: The combination of higher overall spend and volumes with smaller average transaction values suggests price-sensitive shopping in a high cost-of-living environment. Clients are breaking up purchases, comparing prices, and targeting deals, rather than making large one-off splurges. The dominance of online, digital wallets and virtual cards shows that clients are shopping where it’s easiest to compare, search, and track, using secure, app-based payment tools that fit into a broader money-management and rewards ecosystem.
ENDS
Notes to editor:
Access the 2025 SpendTrend dashboard and report here: https://www.discovery.co.za/bank/news-spend-trend-black-friday-edition-2025
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About Discovery
Discovery Limited is a South African-founded financial services organisation that operates in the healthcare, life assurance, short-term insurance, banking, savings and investment and wellness markets. Since inception in 1992, Discovery has been guided by a clear core purpose – to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. This has manifested in its globally recognised Vitality Shared-Value insurance model, active in over 40 markets with over 40 million members. The model is exported and scaled through the Global Vitality Network, an alliance of some of the largest insurers across key markets including AIA (Asia), Ping An (China), Generali (Europe), Sumitomo (Japan), John Hancock (US), Manulife (Canada) and Vitality Life & Health (UK, wholly owned). Discovery trades on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange as DSY.
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About Discovery Bank
Discovery Bank is part of Discovery Limited, a financial services organisation that operates in healthcare, life assurance, short-term insurance, investments, banking, and wellness industries, in over 40 markets globally. Built on a shared-value model, Discovery Bank is fundamentally designed to create unique shared value for clients, differentiating the Bank from traditional banking models. Clients are encouraged to manage their money well, monetising healthy financial behaviours that lower their financial risk and realises long-term default and risk savings for the Bank. Discovery Bank shares this value with clients in the form of better interest rates, deep discounts and significant rewards from an exclusive retail, lifestyle and wellness partner network. The model has an overall positive impact on clients, society and Discovery Bank - clients experience greater financial wellbeing, the risk of defaults for Discovery Bank is lowered making the business more sustainable; while improved financial behaviours such as increased savings, higher retirement savings and lower debt levels, benefit society as a whole. Behaviour change and rewards are enabled through Vitality Money, an AI-powered programme on the Discovery Bank app that gives clients an understanding of the behaviours that influence their financial wellbeing, while giving them the tools to improve their financial behaviours. The more clients improve their financial behaviour, the higher their Vitality Money status and the greater the value they receive.
