No fireworks for Discovery bank
CEO Adrian Gore plays down talk of an industry game-changer
The imminent launch of Discovery's new banking operation might have the market agog, but CEO Adrian Gore is doing everything he can to lower expectations. In an interview with Business Times, Gore gave few details about the planned operation beyond saying it would be consumer-oriented and might, in the long term, expand into corporate and investment banking. While speculation over the plan has built up over the past two years, Gore said the idea of a bank had been germinating since 2009. He downplayed any suggestion that it will make a big initial splash in a market dominated by Capitec and the big four, Standard, Absa, FirstRand and Nedbank. "If you have a value proposition that resonates, I think in two or three years you know if people like the proposition," he said. "I think it is five to seven [years] to get any real financial value out of it and seven to 10 [years] to get scale." He scoffs at any suggestion that a Discovery bank would be a threat to existing players in a secto...
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