Banking

New bank launching in South Africa in two months

Jonathan Hoyle

 ·10 Sep 2026

Sanlam has announced it will soft-launch its new banking services in South Africa on 1 November 2026, with a broader rollout planned for the first quarter of 2027.

The group announced in its latest interim financial results that it had received regulatory approval to introduce transactional services to its offerings.

“Approval clears the path to bring transactional banking services into the Sanlam ecosystem,” the company said.

The company first announced plans to enter the banking sector in September 2025, saying at the time that the move would occur in 2026.

The move came on the back of a partnership between Sanlam and TymeBank, which focused on providing unsecured personal loans bundled with credit life cover.

Sanlam’s entry into transactional banking will start with a soft launch, where it will offer the services to staff, intermediaries, and select clients.

This will help the company assess the system before it is introduced nationwide, which the company plans to do at the start of 2027.

Currently, Sanlam is waiting for key deliverables before it proceeds, including support for Apple Pay functionality.

“Following a few key deliverables, including Apple Pay functionality and a phased rollout, the group intends to gradually introduce these services during the first quarter of 2027,” the company said.

In its interim results, Sanlam said that the rollout of transactional banking services is a priority for the group, along with the growth of the retail credit business.

The rollout has been slower than the group initially discussed, with initial plans placing the bank’s rollout in the middle of 2026.

In 2025, Sanlam CEO Paul Hanratty said, “We are hoping to test with family and friends later this year and then by the middle of 2026, we should be in the market.”

The introduction of banking services followed Old Mutual’s venture into the same market with its OM bank.

Old Mutual, another major insurer in South Africa, has since introduced its banking services in the country.

Slow growth for Sanlam

In the last six months, Sanlam saw muted growth in its core earnings, with the figure only rising 1% year-on-year.

The company also saw a slight decline in operating profit, down approximately 7% to R7.3 billion from R7.9 billion, which the company attributed to lower positive investment variances.

“Excluding investment variances, the operating profit was 1% lower than the prior period,” the company said.

Sanlam’s headline earnings declined “due to market conditions,” the company said.

“The impact of weaker equity markets and higher interest rates on bond valuations, particularly in Morocco and India, respectively, following strong gains in the previous period, weighed on performance.”

“Investment returns were further impacted by adverse unrealised mark-to-market movements on the group’s investment in Ninety One subsequent to the closing of this transaction in February 2026.”

Sanlam also said its earnings were negatively impacted by weather-related claims in South Africa over the past year.

“Earnings were negatively impacted by elevated weather-related general insurance claims across South Africa and parts of Africa, as well as rand strength, which reduced the translated value of earnings from businesses outside South Africa,” it said.

“Going forward, the group will focus its earnings analysis on core earnings as it provides the best indication of the group’s underlying earnings performance and cash-generating capacity.”

Both Headline Earnings Per Share (HEPS) and diluted HEPS dropped by 15% between the 2025 and 2026 interim periods.

While Sanlam’s earnings fell, the group saw an increase in new business volume, which rose by 22% to R224 million.

Sanlam interim financial results