South Africa's National Treasury, in a keynote address by Deputy Minister David Masondo to the second Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion plenary, framed South Africa’s 2025 G20 presidency priority as “Moving from Access to Usage”, arguing that account ownership and digital wallets are not sufficient if financial services are not used to improve household and small business outcomes. The address emphasised persistent usage gaps, particularly for women, youth, informal workers and rural entrepreneurs, and pointed to a continuing global account deficit of 1.5 billion adults. The speech highlighted women’s economic empowerment as central to the agenda and cited evidence that women typically reinvest up to 90% of income into households compared with around 30–40% for men. It also set out South Africa’s implementation focus through the Financial Sector Development Reform Program, including the Inclusive Payments Digitalisation Programme launched with the Reserve Bank to deliver practical digital payment solutions for the informal sector, piloted in Tembisa and Hammanskraal, with plans to expand based on data and community feedback. Related measures cited included regulatory streamlining for low-cost fintech solutions through the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group, strengthened consumer protection through the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill, and rural connectivity improvements through the SA Connect programme. Within the plenary’s two-day agenda, delegates were encouraged to develop “last mile” solutions through sessions on MSME finance and digital financial inclusion, including approaches such as revamped microloan frameworks, new risk assessment tools for cash-based businesses, community-based lending or guarantee schemes, and deployable payments technologies such as low-cost point-of-sale devices, QR-code payments and offline-capable fintech solutions.

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