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More interesting than discovering a fossil murder banana that resembles Barney the Dinosaur? More entertaining than robots tryna play soccer? Finding out that The Open Letter is going daily.
That’s right, from today, we’re going to be coming your way every weekday, Mon—Fri, with a brand-new format that gives you all the same value (plus a little extra) in short, 5-minute bursts.
Every. Single. Day.
Celebrations? We think so 💃🏻🕺🏽🪩
Hit reply to let us know what you think about the all-new, daily format…
TRENDING NOW
Can These SA Startups Shoulder a 6’500% Onboarding Cost Increase?
From today, banks and FinTechs face a massive onboarding cost increase — we look at the impact and some ventures working on building a better way…
ICYMI: FinTech feeds were ablaze last week when Home Affairs gazetted an increase from 15c to R10 notification on ID verification lookup fees (a legal requirement for bank and fin KYC) from today (1 July) and the June open letter from TymeBank (one of SA’s few true unicorns) CEO Coenraad Jonker urging new (DA) minister Leon Schreiber (July ‘24) to reconsider, given the extra onboarding costs this adds to SA FinTechs.
To which Schreiber responded on X.
It didn’t come overnight, though. Home Affairs released a repositioning paper in 2017, gazetted a white paper in 2019, a draft policy in 2020 and called for comment on this new fee structure on 31 March this year. So, the hike’s likely here to stay – how will it impact SA FinTechs?
The cost of innovation
To note: SA’s other big “new” banking player, Capitec, supported Schreiber’s hike, saying it’ll shoulder the costs. But if we’re honest, they’re one of the Big Five banks now (R100bn+ market cap, 21M customers), meaning such hikes backed by regulation can only widen their moat.
But what about every neo bank, crypto exchange, InsurTech, payments and wallet-supply FinTech, microfinance and lenders, etc? KYC in SA has at least 7 required checks, each at their own cost. Raising the ID check price by 6’500% means that verifying 1,000 new customers jumps from R150 to R10k. So, onboarding 100k new clients is R1 million (versus R15k last month).
Now, markets like the US and Europe don’t feel this pain because they don’t have centralised ID authorities. But, as India learned painfully in 2019, when you raise ID check costs, startups suffer – that’s why they quickly backpedalled in 2021.
And SA has one of Africa’s largest and most dynamic FinTech sectors – SA is home to 20% of the continent’s FinTechs, by far the country’s biggest and best-funded sector.
Are there any opportunities here?
Well, ID systems don’t need to be centralised – markets like the US have thrived without it. Everyone from Finland to Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, and most of Europe is actively developing Decentralised ID (DID) systems.
This moment may spark a shift toward DID, and local startups are already building. In November last year, we showed how Paris Valakelis and team are democratising SA consumers’ data over at truID. Similarly, Lohan Spies’s DIDx and forensic specialist Dawid Jacobs’s DAL-Identity are working on solving this self-same problem.
Catalysed or crushed innovation in SA? It could all depend on who controls the future of ID. We’re watching this space…
FOUNDER’S CORNER
Three Things for SA Business Builders
Automatically post from your newsletter/blog to social? One local founder in our community just set up a Make automation that pulls from your Beehiiv (or any) RSS feed and posts directly to social — no Zapier needed. It’s simple, powerful and built for scale. Watch the short how-to here. Tools like this are a reminder: you don’t always need to build it yourself.
Using Lula for business banking? This live session on Wednesday, 2 July at 11:00 is your chance to get answers straight from the team behind the platform. Lula’s product leads will walk through the top questions from customers — covering everything from funding approvals to hidden features — and share live demos, expert tips, and what’s coming next. Register here.
Fast, sourced answers without opening your laptop: Perplexity AI is now on WhatsApp, giving founders a way to ask anything from “What are today’s AI headlines?” to “Give me a competitor summary” right from chat. It’s lightweight, smart and increasingly powerful, with links, images and a natural Q&A flow that rivals your usual search habits. Go here to start a thread; it's worth a try for research, writing or staying on top of the market. More info here.
Lula proudly sponsors Founder’s Corner.
Lula is South Africa’s first business-only banking suite, offering fast, flexible funding and frictionless banking built exclusively for SMEs. Experience business-class banking and funding now.
DON’T MISS THIS
A Whole New Level of Open Letter Event
Coming your way, Stellenbosch…
Double the size. Double the itinerary. Triple the value.
Our in-person events have been such a hit, we’re building out an all-new 5-hour experience with startups, exhibitors, early-stage validation strategies, landing your first customer talks, Founder Collab Q&A, an oh-so Stellenbosch main panel discussion, networking and breakaway sessions.
The main event? We get the inside scoop on the venture that spun out such Stellenbosch originals as Pondering Panda, Journey Apps, SnapScan, OfferZen, Root, Luno and Mindjoy.
Grab your early bird tickets now for R50 off PLUS use TOL50 at checkout to get an extra R50 off, exclusive to readers of The Open Letter.
IN SHORT
Grab a headline or two to keep the convo flowing…
🥊 Big Business Boost. Local heavy-hitters Pick n Pay and Capitec are throwing their considerable corporate weight behind SA’s SMMEs. Pick n Pay has onboarded nearly 1’000 suppliers in 2024 as part of its Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) strategy, nice!
🎸 Rock on Robots. There’s a new psych-rock band taking over the airwaves. Velvet Sundown dropped 2 whole albums in June, and they’ve already amassed 400’000 listeners on Spotify in less than a month. Incredibly, the band, its music, and even its bio are completely AI-generated (not to mention its Insta page). We hate how much we don't hate it, man.
👀 Lost Docs? The Department of Home Affairs are probing the allegations that some SA moms have sold their kids’ birth certificates to foreign nationals. This comes after “several instances” of 18-year-olds applying for ID documents, but were unable to produce their original birth certificates. Sheesh, how do you even solve that…
🏎️🏁 One Day Only. New cinema release “F1” is Apple’s biggest movie launch ever. And to celebrate, Ster-Kinekor is selling half-price tickets for today (1 July). It’s for both normal and IMAX screenings, via their website only.
✅ The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with full-funnel tech performance marketing by Stream, hardware, software, acceleration and funding for remarkable builds with Octoco and loads more vital startup tools & services.
WHAT YOU SAID
Lost & found…
Last Friday, we asked about the best way to find a missing pet, and your local Meta groups are still the way…
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💬 Local community groups on WhatsApp and Facebook (33%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤞 Hoping their chip gets scanned at a local vet (17%)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔐 Properly securing your property (13%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👾 Just get a Tamagotchi (10%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤔 This digital pet identity thing looks pretty interesting (27%)
Your 2 cents…
“This happened to me this week. I was walking my dogs in our estate when a known escape artist attacked my female dog and my male, Max, ran away. After getting his sister to the vet, it was our local community chat group that helped me eventually find Max. An animal communicator says he ran and hid for so long (13 hours) because he feared his sister might be dead. When he saw she was fine, he came out of hiding.”
So glad you found Max, Andrea! Hope he’s happy, home and safe now. 🐶
“Jack Russells never get lost — they're just looking for greener pastures... ”
Ha ha, ja Chris, and they seem to just get more energy with age. 🔋⚡
“Prevention beats cure every time, make sure your pets are safe and happy at home.”
Wise words, William, surprising how many people don’t secure their animals still in 2025. 🦮
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