Riaan Stassen, the man who shook up SA’s banking industry when he co-founded Capitec Bank is retiring from the company at the end of May. Stassen, who has served as nonexecutive chair of the bank since stepping down as CEO in 2013, played a leading role in growing Capitec into the third-largest bank in SA in terms of market capitalisation in just 18 years. Capitec’s market capitalisation was about R153.332bn at Thursday’s close. During this time, Capitec transformed from a micro-lending business, with assets of R409m in 2002, to a mass market retail bank with assets of more than R100bn at last count. Capitec has 11.4-million clients — more than Nedbank — and is catching up with Absa, Standard Bank and First National Bank. The bank’s headline earnings in the year to end-February rose 19% to R5.3bn, a better growth rate than any of its main rivals. Anthony Clark, an independent analyst at Small Talk Daily Research, said that Stassen’s exit marked the end of an era for the bank. "I don...

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