Capitec backs lower fees to transition clients
The bank continues to add thousands of clients to its low-cost offering
Capitec has taken a bold and risky decision to lower fees across its transactional banking offering in a bid to encourage more clients to use its digital and self-help channels. “It’s actually not in response to the new entrants,” said Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie when asked whether this was a ploy to defend the bank’s growing market share against a host of new entrants. It could be a risky bet as almost the bank’s entire operating expenditure is covered by net transaction fee income. The latter grew by 26% to R6.5bn in the year as clients continued to move from cash to card-based transactions, it said.
“The risk of cash handling in SA has increased significantly over the last few years,” the company said. TymeBank, Bank Zero and Discovery Bank are all in the process of launching, while another competitor, African Bank, is coming to market with its own transactional offering. “We want to get more of our clients moving to digital and self-help channels and away from cash," said Fo...
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