The SADC region runs its own cross-border settlement — a high-value RTGS operated out of South Africa, and a low-value retail scheme, TCIB, now being mandated for Common Monetary Area transfers. Here is how SADC-RTGS and TCIB divide the work, and where SA sits.
A regional RTGS run out of South Africa for high-value flows, plus a separate retail rail (TCIB) for the small cross-border payments RTGS was never built for.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) runs a regional cross-border settlement system so that intra-SADC payments settle within the region rather than via offshore correspondents. The high-value backbone is the SADC-RTGS — formerly known as SIRESS — a real-time gross settlement system live since July 2013 and operated by the South African Reserve Bank on behalf of participating central banks.
Membership spans 16 SADC countries — from Angola and the DRC to Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. SADC-RTGS settles high-value interbank obligations. It was never designed for small retail transfers, which is exactly the gap the newer TCIB scheme fills.
| Rail | Value tier | What it does | Operator / note |
|---|---|---|---|
| SADC-RTGS (ex-SIRESS) | High-value | Real-time gross settlement of interbank obligations across SADC | Operated by SARB for the SADC central banks; multi-currency |
| TCIB (Transactions Cleared on an Immediate Basis) | Low-value retail | Instant cross-border retail payments from wallets, accounts or cash-in | ISO 20022; connects banks, fintechs and mobile-money operators |
TCIB is the inclusion layer: it moves small cross-border payments — remittances, person-to-person, low-value merchant — quickly and cheaply across SADC corridors, reaching mobile-money and cash endpoints, not just bank accounts. SADC-RTGS handles the wholesale settlement underneath.
In April 2025, SARB issued Directive No. 1 of 2025 requiring all low-value cross-border electronic fund transfers within the Common Monetary Area (CMA) — South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini and Namibia — to migrate to the TCIB scheme by March 2027. This is the single most consequential near-term change for anyone moving retail money across SA’s land borders.
If you move retail payments between SA, Lesotho, Eswatini or Namibia, the migration to TCIB is mandated, not optional. Plan the integration now.
The directive targets low-value retail. Wholesale settlement continues over SADC-RTGS as before.
TCIB is ISO 20022-native. If your stack is still ISO 8583 / proprietary for these flows, the message-format migration is part of the work.
TCIB explicitly connects mobile-money operators — the rail is designed to reach wallets and cash-out, not only bank accounts.
Open above; the migration-programme judgement is for members.
The March 2027 TCIB mandate is a hard deadline for CMA low-value flows — treat it as a programme, not a nice-to-have. The honest read: the work is as much ISO 20022 message migration and corridor onboarding as it is a new API. Start the gap analysis against your current cross-border stack now; 2027 is closer than it looks once procurement and testing are counted.
TCIB is your route into regulated cross-border retail without building correspondent relationships — it is explicitly open to non-banks and wallets. The opportunity is the CMA remittance corridors that currently leak value to informal channels and expensive money-transfer operators.
Missing the CMA migration deadline means your cross-border retail product becomes non-compliant on a rail you do not control. The risk is regulatory, not just technical — do not let it slip to 2027.