South African earned wage access platform Paymenow has launched SmartReset, a program aiming to help 10 million employees across South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Pakistan become debt-free by 2035. Introduced on October 6, 2026, the initiative targets workers spending a significant portion of their income on debt repayments.
A DebtBusters survey found that over half of South Africans surveyed in 2026 allocate at least 40% of their take-home pay to debt. SmartReset addresses this through a three-stage process implemented via employers: identifying reckless lending and prescribed debt, creating a budget and repayment plan, and reviewing insurance for duplicates or unfair pricing.
Savings from these steps are moved into a savings account, and participants receive support from accredited financial coaches. Paymenow states the service is free for employees and employers and includes tracking to prevent participants from reverting to debt.
“Millions of South Africans are under real financial pressure and have nowhere to turn,” said Deon Nobrega, CEO of Paymenow. “SmartReset identifies these employees, gets to the root of what is holding them back, and helps them recover,” he added.
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Simon Trupp, CEO of SmartReset, noted that earned wage access alone does not resolve underlying debt issues. “Helping someone reach month-end matters, but it does not clear the debt they are already carrying or repair the credit record shutting them out of affordable finance,” he said.
Financial stress in South Africa is escalating. DebtBusters’ 2026 Money-Stress Tracker revealed that 72% of nearly 18,000 respondents experienced money stress, up from 70% in 2025. The National Credit Regulator reported that in the first quarter of 2025, 36% of 28.9 million credit-active consumers had impaired credit records. The situation worsened when the South African Reserve Bank raised the repo rate to 7.25% in September 2026, increasing repayments on variable-rate debt.
SmartReset builds on Paymenow’s merger with PayCurve earlier in 2026, which expanded its services to include debt rehabilitation, affordability assessments, and money coaching. Earned wage access has seen the fastest adoption among younger workers, particularly those under 35 in South Africa.
Paymenow says several large South African employers have already made SmartReset available to staff, but did not name them or say how many employees have enrolled. These numbers will show whether the 2035 target is a plan or a slogan.
