TymeBank is now one of the fastest-growing digital banks in the world: CEO

 ·11 Sep 2019

TymeBank is now one of the three fastest-growing digital banks in the world, with the bank seeing significant uptake since its official launch at the end of February 2019.

This is according to Tauriq Keraan, chief executive officer at TymeBank, who was speaking at the BusinessTech FinTech conference on Wednesday (11 September).

Keraan said that the bank has 735,000 customers and 325,000 active customers as of September 2019 – a significant jump from the 500,000 customers in July.

He said that most of these customers signed up in either Gauteng or KZN and are over the age of 35, with a growing number (10%) depositing their salaries directly into their TymeBank accounts.

The chief executive said that the value proposition offered by TymeBank has been very well-received by customers, with a strong focus on simplified banking, with fixed fees, charged in forms customers will understand.

While TymeBank is a digital bank, he noted that South Africans are still dealing with cash, and the 17,000 till points at over 1,500 Pick n Pay and Boxer stores across the country have been instrumental in driving its growth.

Unsecured lending

On top of the transactional account, money transfer service and savings accounts currently offered by TymeBank, Keraan said that the bank had also ‘quietly launched’ unsecured lending and was working on products for small businesses.

Keeran said that both of these features are still being worked on with official launches scheduled for 2020.

“We aim to offer an incredibly quick unsecured lending process,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to have a two-minute process from application to disbursement into the client’s bank account.”

Keeran said that unsecured lending was also necessary for TymeBank to become profitable, with the bank targeting a R2 billion unsecured lending book.


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