Lesaka Technologies has rebranded its recently acquired data analytics unit Touchsides to Kazang Insights, with the aim of expanding its offering beyond the alcohol and beverage industry.
Lesaka, which largely offers fintech-based solutions and financial services, acquired Touchsides from Heineken SA for an undisclosed sum in February 2024.
Touchsides, now Kazang Insights, has an active base of more than 10,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals across the country’s informal, licensed taverns and processes more than 1.5-million transactions a day. The business specialises in data analytics, insights and merchant services.
On Wednesday, the JSE-listed fintech operator said Kazang Insights would be integrated into Kazang, its prepaid value-added services (VAS) and card-acquiring business.
The group said integration of the two businesses will enable Kazang “to unlock compelling new data monetisation opportunities and market innovation”.
Lesaka sees an opportunity to expand the Touchsides model beyond alcohol, drawing insights into sales patterns for a myriad other goods that merchants sell using Kazang terminals.
In the same way that the platform is able to produce reports on alcohol sales trends, it can be done for milk, bread, lotion, cigarettes and a host of other goods. It can identify what is selling, where is it being sold and in what quantities.
That data becomes valuable and something that manufacturers or retailers would be willing to pay for to maximise their sales or make decisions on what to produce.
As Lesaka puts it: “The newly rebranded Kazang Insights transforms raw data into actionable insights that empower businesses to thrive in SA’s informal market. Data gathered from Epos terminals is monetised through relationships with clients such as fast-moving consumer goods companies, retailers, wholesalers, route-to-market suppliers and financiers.”
It added that Touchsides’s evolution within Kazang “allows for a more robust data monetisation strategy that incorporates valuable insights from not only taverns but also spazas and other small traders”.
Jade Maserow, data analytics and insights lead at Kazang Insights, said: “Kazang Insights’ installed network and insight capabilities offer a strong platform to understand and penetrate SA’s informal markets. Our solution connects businesses to the pulse of the informal market, empowering them to optimise performance and build lasting customer relationships.”
Previously known as Net1, the fintech group has done much work to reposition itself beyond processing social grants, and has bet a big part of its growth on SA’s informal sector.
The group is made up of two main divisions: merchant and consumer. The consumer units focus on products such as unsecured credit, transactional banking, microinsurance and VAS through its EasyPay platform in the formal sector.
Kazang, part of the merchant division, is a payments platform that includes buying and selling of airtime and micro-lending. The group now has more than 90,000 POS devices across SA, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia.
A 2023 report by the group estimated that the informal sector contributes more than R600bn to the country’s income, translating to more than 6% of GDP.
According to Lesaka’s study, alcohol sales at taverns are a large market worth about R110bn.
Retail — made up of fast-moving consumer goods, spaza shops and superettes — is estimated to be worth R180bn annually. This is made up of about 100,000 spaza shops and superettes, together with 500,000 tabletop traders.
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