Capitec sees earnings above 18% amid strong customer growth

Banking group Capitec says it expects a big jump in earnings for the half year period ended August 2018, as it continues to attract new customers.
The lender said in a statement on Thursday (6 September), that it expects headline earnings per share will be between 2087 cents and 2140 cents per share, representing an increase of between 18% and 21%.
Earnings per share, it said, will be between 2089 cents and 2142 cents per share, also representing an increase of between 18% and 21%.
Capitec is still proving to be an incredibly popular option for South Africans, with the bank recently expanding its range of financial services products in May, with the launch of Capitec Insure.
Featuring paperless applications, claims are paid out within four hours, and cover for up to 22 lives on one policy. At the same time, the bank launched a number of unique funeral products which range from R10,000 to R100,000.
“We designed the funeral plan to be the most affordable, easiest to use and straightforward product on the market and based it on the same principles that our business was founded on 17 years ago – simplicity, transparency and affordability,” said Gerrie Fourie, CEO of Capitec Bank at the product’s launch.
These products follow the introduction of a credit card, which when combined with a number of popular features such as nominal transaction rates has lead to the bank being consistently voted as one of the best in the world.
This has been reflected by the number of customers that are joining the bank each month, said Charl Nel, head of communications at Capitec, adding that the bank has an average of 100,000 new clients joining each month.
Capitec expects to publish its results on about 26 September 2018.
Shares in the group immediately climbed into positive territory in intraday trade on Thursday following the release of the statement on the JSE’s newswire service, climbing to R987.20.
The company’s share price continues to recover from losses it incurred at the start of the year, when a short seller accused the lender of concealing losses, which Capitec denied.
Read: Capitec reveals credit card take-up as it closes in on 10 million customers