This morning at Yoco Next, we announced our biggest platform update yet.

New AI capabilities, deeper financial tools, purpose-built industry modes, and rate reductions that put over R250 million back into merchant accounts.

Over 20 product updates. Here's everything we launched.

AI capabilities built for independent businesses 

• After Yoco’s landmark acquisition of Dyner.ai, we’ve paired Dyner's learnings with over a decade of our data and merchant behaviour. The result? Yoco AI, tailored specifically to independent businesses in South Africa.
  
  

• Instead of you going to look for insights, the data comes to you. Through a simple conversation, you type, or you speak, and AI responds.
  
  

• And not only that, it takes action. With Yoco AI, adding to your product catalogue is as simple as saying: "Add a new product: cold brew, R45."
  
  

• It watches your transaction patterns around the clock, flagging anomalies and suggesting what to do next before you think to ask.
  
  

• The more of your business that runs through Yoco, the smarter it gets.
  
  

• No group benefits more from AI than independent business owners, and this is what gives them what has always been reserved for the large and well-resourced.

Here's a taster of what you can expect:

With this launch, we're truly offering you the unfair advantage.

Yoco AI is coming soon in Q3.

Yoco Loyalty: Card-linked rewards, no extra app required 

• Yoco Loyalty is the first solution of its kind built specifically for independent businesses in South Africa, sitting inside the same platform as your payments and sales data.

  
  

• No app. No punch card. No separate system. Yoco Loyalty lets you reward repeat customers with the card they already use to pay.

  
  

• When a customer pays at your till, Yoco recognises the card and accrues points. Before they've even left the building, a WhatsApp confirms their reward.

  
  

• Access: Available on the Yoco Plus plan. Open the Yoco App, go to Manage > Loyalty, and follow the setup steps. The programme runs automatically once configured.

Food and Beverage: The whole operation, finally connected

• Yoco now has two purpose-built modes: one for quick-service, one for sit-down restaurants.
  
  

• For quick-service: the moment an order is placed, it goes directly to the right station with Yoco’s prep stations. Every customisation is captured at the point of order, not guessed from a handwritten note. 
  
  

• For restaurants: every table is visible in real time. Servers take orders at the table with the newly-launched Khumo 2 and they travel directly to the kitchen. No walking back to the till. No tickets lost in transit. The same device handles payment when the bill arrives.
  
  

• At the end of service, table and order reports show occupancy, which tables worked hardest, and patterns worth paying attention to. Every void, discount, and refund is tracked and attributed.
  
  

• Merchants using multi-location management grew monthly revenue by 14% over the last three months.
  
  

• No installation appointment. No technician. Open the app, connect your devices, and you are ready for service.
  
  

• Access: Yoco's Food and Beverage offerings are available to all Yoco merchants.

Retail: Simple to set up. Built to scale.

• The retail suite is all-in-one hardware and software. No tech person, no installation wait. You order it, it arrives, you open it, and you start selling. Whether you're in a major city or a rural town, setup is the same.
  
  

• The barcode scanner connects to your catalogue in under 30 seconds and reduces checkout time by up to 40% during peak.
  
  

• Stock updates in real time as sales happen. Low-stock alerts arrive before the last unit sells, not after a customer has already asked for it.
  
  

• Returns are clean: select the item, process the refund, stock goes back automatically. No manual correction, no count that doesn't add up at month end.
  
  

• Every discount and void is logged with a name, a time, and a value. These things compound quietly, but visibility with Yoco closes that gap.
  
  

• Multi-location management gives businesses with more than one site a single account across all of them: stock, staff, pricing, and reporting in one place.
  
  

• Khumo 2, Yoco's new handheld device, brings the full retail experience off the counter and onto the floor, to pop-ups, markets, and anywhere the business goes.
  
  

• Smart Receipts, sent automatically after every transaction, give merchants a direct line back to those customers with a branded receipt, a promo, or a reason to return.
  
  

• Access: Available to all Yoco merchants. Order your retail hardware bundle and get set up the same day.

Health and Beauty: From paper diary to full operating system

• Appointments mode unlocks a booking system for salons, nail bars, and wellness studios that allows access to systems previously out of reach.
  
  

• A salon owner can see their full week at a glance: every stylist's column, every confirmed booking, colour-coded by service, with revenue for the day and slots still to fill.
  
  

• Bookings take two taps. The system finds the client by name or number, pulls up their profile, history, and notes from their last visit. New client? Their profile is created on the spot.
  
  

• Multi-service, multi-stylist appointments are staggered automatically. The system flags conflicts before they become double bookings.
  
  

• At checkout, the booking becomes the sale. Services are already loaded, additional products can be added on the spot, payment happens on the same device. No re-entering. No re-explaining.
  
  

• Commissions per stylist, service attribution, and transaction tracking happen in real time. Admin is handled automatically without following you home.
  
  

• Access: Available on the Yoco Plus plan.

Yoco Savings: Dedicated savings feature built for your revenue flow

• Yoco Savings lets you open multiple pockets inside your Yoco account and earmark each one for a specific purpose: VAT, equipment, seasonal reserves, whatever your business needs.

  
  

• It’s a savings solution specifically designed to work alongside the way your cash moves.

  
  

• Choose a percentage of your daily earnings to ring-fence and it splits automatically at the source. December peaks and your pockets grow. January dips and the money is already there.

  
  

• No lock-ins. No minimum balance. Earning a high return through a trusted authorised financial services partner. You set it up once and it builds without your constant input.

  
  

• Over 4,000 merchants are already actively saving, setting aside over R3.4 million in just 21 days.

  
  

• Access: Available to eligible Yoco merchants today. Open the Yoco App and navigate to Savings to get started.

Yoco Connect: Your tools talking to each other

• Yoco Connect is an integration hub built directly into the Yoco App. Connect your accounting software, ecommerce platforms, and inventory systems to your Yoco account and sales flow automatically, with no manual exports or reconciliation needed.
  
  

• Over 500 merchants are already running the Xero integration alone. That's 500 businesses whose books reconcile themselves. Time back. Human error removed.
  
  

• 13 integrations are live today, with more going live in the coming months.
  
  

• Access: Available to all Yoco merchants. Open the Yoco App and go to Manage > Connect to see available integrations and connect your existing tools.

Yoco Developer Hub: Custom features built on Yoco's infrastructure

• The Yoco Developer Hub gives any developer, third party, or merchant the ability to build on top of Yoco's platform and infrastructure.
  
  

• Full API documentation is published alongside an MCP server, meaning developers can use AI tools to build integrations and custom solutions directly on Yoco's infrastructure without starting from scratch.
  
  

• In a world where AI means you no longer need to be a developer to build like one, an open platform is a business unlock. Simply connect to Yoco's MCP server through an AI tool, and start building the same day.
  
  

• No payments platform in South Africa has opened its infrastructure to this degree. More than 50 applications built on Yoco are already in active use today.
  
  

• Access: The hub, API documentation, and MCP server are available to all developers at developer.yoco.com.

Yoco's biggest ever investment in South Africa's independent businesses 

• Over the past two months, we’ve reduced transaction rates by up to 40% across the network, putting over R250 million a year back into the hands of South Africa's independent businesses.
  
  

• Transaction fees are one of the few areas where Yoco directly and immediately improves a merchant's margins. That's money staying in a business, right now, when it matters most.
  
  

• Access: The rate reduction applies automatically to all Yoco merchants. No action required. To view your current rates, open the Yoco App and go to Account > Your Plan.

Built for this moment. Built for you.

What you have just read is a platform built around the specific realities of independent businesses in South Africa, from the tools that run your finances and understand your data, to the systems purpose-built for your industry.

• The intelligence to understand your business without needing an analyst. 
  
  

• The savings infrastructure that works the way your cash actually moves.
  
  

• A loyalty programme that gives your best customers a reason to keep choosing you. 
  
  

• Rates reduced at the moment it matters most. 
  
  

• A connected platform that ends the manual reconciliation for good. 
  
  

• Open infrastructure that lets you build whatever the existing tools don't yet cover. 
  
  

• And a complete operating system for every food and beverage business, every retailer, and every health and beauty professional who has been running on tools that were never designed for them.
  
  

All the things that were reserved for the large and the well-resourced. Now available to every independent business in South Africa.

More time on the craft. More time with customers. Less of the work that was never the reason you opened that door.

Every decision Yoco has made has started with you. 

Today is no different.

This is your unfair advantage.