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Johannesburg - January transactions show that the economy is flat but slowly getting positive, according to the BankservAfrica Economic Transaction Index (Beti).
"The latest [index] has revealed that January had 80.7 million transactions via the BankservAfrica payments system, up 1.1% on 2014," it said in a statement.
"The standardised monetary value fell below R600bn for the first time since January last year and sits at R593.5bn."
The lower rate of inflation helped keep the year-on-year Beti positive despite a very flat monthly charge, BankservAfrica said.
Head of fraud and data analytics at BankservAfrica Caroline Belrose said the country's payment system sat centrally in the economy and reflected a flat start to the year but not a decline in economic activity.
"According to the Beti, December 2014 remains the strongest month in nearly two years, so it is relative for January 2015 to show a 0.1% month-on-month decline in economic activity compared to December.
"However, against January 2014 there is positive year-on-year growth of 1.1%, and quarterly growth is 1.2%," she said.
January was traditionally the month with the smallest number of transactions.
The standardised data underlying the Beti for January was 6.3% higher than the same month last year.
Economist Mike Schssler said potential growth was still the best description for the overall economic trend with some upward potential seen in the next month.
"Another big fall in fuel prices could help the South African economy with its high logistics cost," he said.
"Against this is the massive shortage of electricity which will at least counter some of the positive effects of oil price declines. But overall the electricity outages have not caused the economy to go into a declining trend which at least shows a resilience from economic role players."
