ON THE SPOT
GIULIETTA TALEVI: Johan van Zyl convinced Tyme is right for African Rainbow’s digital bank
Does SA really need another bank? Listed BEE investment group African Rainbow Capital (ARC) seems to think so, confirming this week that it will buy out the shares it doesn’t own in digital banking start-up TymeDigital, from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). Business Day asked ARC’s co-CEO Johan van Zyl, why the buyout? Was it mainly because CBA wanted to exit their position? The board changed its strategy to focus on Australia and New Zealand. We were about to launch the beginning of September and we had certain rights and [they asked] would we be interested to take over those rights. So we did our sums; we’re very happy with the focus and the plans and we decided to exercise the rights, rather than bring another partner in their place. It’s like a prenuptial that was drawn up: they [CBA] never thought they would go — they always thought we would go. I remember when we had the negotiation three years ago that the guys laughed quite loudly, they didn’t anticipate that situat...
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