Banking

Capitec in big customer win

Staff Writer

 ·26 Mar 2014

Capitec Bank says that it has added 711,000 active clients for the year ended February 2014, boosting its total base by 15% to 5.4 million.

Earlier in march, FNB indicated that customer numbers for South Africa stood at 7.1 million as at the end of December 2013, while Nedbank said it grew its retail customer segment by 529,000 or 9%, to 6.4 million during the period ended December 2013.

In February 2014, Absa reported a loss of 940,000 clients in its retail banking arm.

In announcing its financial results for the year ended, December 2013, Absa pointed to a decline in transactional customer numbers to 8.84 million, due to the closure of 800,000 social grant-related accounts. The bank had 12.1 million customers in 2011.

On Wednesday (26 March), Capitec said that earnings grew to R2.017 billion, with headline earnings per share up 15% to R17.52.

It proposed a final dividend per share of 460 cents.

“We have 711,000 more active clients than a year ago…we have more clients using more of our services. In the latest independent AMPS survey 12.7% of banking clients indicated that they consider us their primary bank.”

“It is our ambition to continue increasing this market share,” the bank said.

The group noted that it revamped its website and implemented a new front-end banking system during the year.

“This was a massive and expensive effort, entailing the training of 6,823 employees.”

“As part of this development we introduced ‘side-by-side’ consulting, a Capitec Bank first, where the client and consultant both face the computer screen. The client is treated as a participant in the process,” the bank added.

Capitec said that it opened a record 69 branches in 2013, taking overall branches to 629.

“Our ATM network, including partnership ATMs, increased 14% to 2 918. During the year the bank handled 60 million ATM transactions, processing an average of two transactions per second,” it said.

The group said it created 762 new jobs during the year, with total permanent employees at year-end at 9,070, from 8,308 before.

“We appointed 1,895 school leavers and 437 people with post-matric qualifications during the year. We promoted 925 employees within the organisation,” Capitec said.

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