JSE-listed fintech Lesaka Technologies is rebranding Kazang Insights as Lesaka Data & Insights as part of the consolidation of its merchant-based businesses under the name of Lesaka Merchant Division. Formed through Lesaka’s 2024 acquisition of Touchsides from Heineken International, Lesaka Data & Insights now operates as a neutral data and insights partner to FMCG brands, wholesalers, financiers and other organisations serving South Africa’s informal market.
Lesaka Data & Insights has access to data from a point-of-sale (POS) network comprising over 90,000 spaza shops and taverns and 10,500 checkouts. The company captures millions of transactions each month, giving its clients near real-time visibility into stockkeeping unit-level sales, basket composition, actual selling prices, stock availability, geographic trends and promotion performance in the informal retail sector.
Southern Africa’s informal retail economy moves billions of rand a month, and almost no one can see it clearly. Most data on informal trade is modelled or sampled periodically, meaning it can be weeks or months out of date by the time it reaches decision-makers. Lesaka Data & Insights is built on observed consumer behaviour rather than assumptions, giving brands greater confidence in the decisions they make.
Beyond providing raw information, Lesaka Data & Insights combines research, data science and advanced analytics to help organisations to not only understand what is happening in the market, but why it is happening and what is likely to happen next. Brands benefit from actionable insights and recommendations that help them make smarter and faster decisions about price optimisation, product distribution, promotional campaigns and allocation of their marketing budgets.
“Brands seeking to understand South Africa’s informal retail economy have traditionally relied on surveys, samples and historical data,” says Roland Naidoo, Chief Operating Officer of Lesaka’s Merchant Division. “These approaches can be expensive and often struggle to keep pace with a fast-moving market where consumer behaviour, pricing and product availability change at a rapid pace. Our goal is to give companies real-time, grassroots visibility into how South Africa’s informal economy actually shops.”
Over time, Lesaka plans to develop models that allow participating spaza shops and taverns to share in the value generated by the insights business. The company also sees data as an important catalyst for helping informal merchants digitise their operations, improve business performance and gain access to new commercial opportunities. This approach reflects Lesaka’s commitment to strengthening the informal economy by combining merchant services with technology, payments and data.
The company’s roadmap also includes plans to incorporate payments data from Lesaka’s merchant terminals and information from GAAP, the point-of-sale and software-as-a-service provider to Southern Africa’s hospitality sector that Lesaka also owns, into the data and insights offering. Combining transaction, payments and hospitality-sector data will give clients a more complete view of consumer purchasing behaviour.
“The informal economy remains one of the least understood parts of the consumer landscape, despite its size and importance,” says Naidoo. “Our vision is to transform millions of real transactions into intelligence that helps businesses make faster and more informed decisions. The data we have access to, along with our accumulated experience in the informal sector, means we are uniquely able to shed light on purchasing behaviour and changing consumer demand in this market.”