PayJustNow Mobile Launches on Cell C as Weaver Fintech Bets on Rewards

South Africa’s biggest buy-now-pay-later company is now also a mobile operator. Weaver Fintech has quietly switched on PayJustNow Mobile, a phone service that rewards good repayment behaviour with airtime and data — and it is doing so while tightening lending after a bad-debt shock.

A soft launch, not a splash

There was no launch event and no advertising campaign. PayJustNow Mobile began rolling out to selected customers on 27 August 2026, according to industry trackers, with tech outlet MyBroadband confirming the service on 1 September. Weaver Fintech, the JSE-listed group formerly known as HomeChoice International, had flagged a “soft launch” of the product in its interim results in mid-August.

The service is a mobile virtual network operator: Weaver owns the customer relationship, the brand and the rewards programme, while the calls and data physically run on Cell C’s network. It is the second MVNO to join Cell C in two months, after Dolphin Mobile went live on 22 July. Cell C, which stopped building its own radio network years ago and now roams on partner infrastructure, has made hosting MVNOs a core business.

Why a lender wants to be a phone company

The logic is retention. PayJustNow’s model depends on customers repaying on time and coming back for the next purchase. Mobile service gives Weaver a monthly touchpoint that credit alone cannot provide — and a rewards currency that costs little but feels valuable. Early details indicate airtime and data benefits tied to customer behaviour on the platform.

The move follows a playbook proven elsewhere on the continent: fintechs and banks use connectivity to lock in ecosystems. It also diversifies revenue at a moment when the core lending business needs tighter, not looser, growth.

The bad-debt backdrop

The launch lands in Weaver’s hardest credit cycle in years. In the six months to the end of June, group revenue grew 10 percent to R2.8 billion, but debtor costs surged 62 percent to just over R1 billion and the credit loss ratio climbed to almost 25 percent, from 21 percent. Headline earnings slipped about 9 percent to R272 million, and the board skipped the interim dividend to preserve cash.

A technical failure at DebiCheck, the bank-authenticated debit-order system, made some paying customers look like defaulters — a problem chief executive Sean Wibberley says has been resolved. Weaver cut its targeted approval rate from 81.4 to 75.8 percent, shortened loan terms, and slowed new lending growth from 15 percent in the first quarter to 6 percent in the second. July arrears measures improved 13 percent, the first sign the turn is taking hold. We covered the credit squeeze in detail when the results broke in August.

The engine underneath

For all the credit pain, the fintech division — the part PayJustNow Mobile now extends — lifted revenue 30 percent and fee income 43 percent, and it generates 94 percent of the group’s trading profit. Customer numbers rose 17 percent to 5.1 million. That base, plus R1.1 billion in cash and unused facilities, is what Weaver is betting on: a captive audience for mobile services, digital banking and whatever comes next. Rival digital banks such as GoTyme, which we profiled this month, are chasing the same customer from the banking side.

Wibberley expects consumer finances to stay strained through the second half, with transport and food costs squeezing households. The mobile bet suggests Weaver thinks the winners of that squeeze will be the platforms that own the most everyday touchpoints — and few are as everyday as the phone itself.

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Sources: MyBroadband (1 September 2026); News24 Business (12 August 2026); Weaver Fintech interim results commentary for the six months ended 30 June 2026; Atomic Mobile MVNO Launch Tracker (2 September 2026); Business Bagel results analysis (14 August 2026).

More: South Africa coverage from The Rio Times.

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