digital banks
Can SA’s new challenger banks knock out the ‘big four’?
For two decades, SA’s banking sector has remained largely the same. The advent of Capitec, in 2001, showed that customers were desperate for something different. Now, three new banks — all backed by powerful SA business personalities — are opening their digital doors, offering something entirely different. So what can they offer that’s new, and how much of a threat is this for the ‘big four’ banks?
Financial services used to change slowly. Twenty years after Douw Steyn launched the direct-to-consumer insurer Auto & General in 1985, insurance was still largely sold through brokers, and index funds still accounted for a tiny portion of investment assets. Banking changed even more slowly. More than 25 years after the launch of the internet, most banks still distribute a large portion of their products through a branch network. These branches will still be perfectly recognisable to anyone visiting SA for the first time in 30 years. None of the big banks will rock the boat; they want to protect their collective income. That era has come to an end. In the past few months, three new banks have launched with a leaner, cheaper business model that will change the face of SA banking — Discovery Bank, TymeBank and Bank Zero. It’s been a long time coming. After Saambou and Fidelity Bank collapsed in the early 2000s, the SA Reserve Bank was for a long time reluctant to let new banks open. B...
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