Banking

South Africa’s most valuable bank is going international

Luke Fraser

 ·23 Apr 2026

Capitec is planning to launch internationally, but Group CEO Graham Lee says the plans remain at an incredibly early stage.

Speaking to BusinessTech following the group’s financial results for the 2026 financial year, Lee said that a team has been established to focus on the group’s international business.

Capitec is going international, but the bank is still in the planning stage of its strategy, with a newly-appointed team looking for opportunities across the globe.

Capitec has 26 million active customers in the country and a market cap of R513 billion, making it the biggest bank in customer numbers and value.

Lee said that the new team is scanning the whole world to find opportunities to launch the Capitec operations.

The recently appointed CEO added that the bank will not just target emerging markets and will look for any gaps where the brand can utilise its expertise.

The CEO, who has also worked in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Nigeria, said that you cannot take a copy-and-paste approach, as every market differs.

While international expansion remains part of the group’s growth path, it is still a long-term goal.

Notably, the group already has some international exposure, having acquired a majority stake in AvaFin in 2024.

AvaFin is a lender that is based in Poland, Spain, Mexico, Czechia, and Latvia. While established in many markets, AvaFin’s contribution to the group’s headline earnings was only 1% in FY2026.

Outside of the international goals, Lee also said that the group is working on media and data services.

Lee said that these new services will be designed to help its business banking clients effectively market to their clients and will improve its existing ecosystem.

Group financials

Lee’s first financial year-end after he replaced former CEO Gerrie Fourie started with a bang, with the group seeing a massive rise in earnings.

For FY2026, headline earnings grew by 23% to R16.8 billion (FY2025: R13.7 billion). The group also upped its dividend per share by 23% to 7,980 cents.

The group’s net interest income also increased by 19% to R24.1 billion (FY2025: R20.2 billion), while interest income on lending grew by 14%.

Interest income was driven by 27% and 48% increases in loan disbursements for Personal Banking and Business Banking, respectively.

The group said that targeted offers informed by data analytics drove Personal Banking lending, while scored lending drove growth in Business Banking.

Interest income on investments increased by 2% to R9.2 billion as the average cash and investment portfolio grew by 7%.

The group added that the decline in the repo rate from 7.5% to 6.75% impacted investment yields, as did shifts toward floating-rate instruments.

The group’s interest expenses declined by 8% to R9.2 billion despite a 5% increase in deposits and wholesale funding, driven by the repo rate decrease and restructuring of its savings accounts.

The group’s total loan disbursements also grew by 34% to R98.3 billion, while its credit impairment charge on loans and advances increased by 21%.

The group’s credit loss ratio increased to 8.1%, with increases seen across all business units: business banking up to 2.4%, personal banking up to 8.2%, and AvaFin up to 53.2%.

“Longer-term products with maturities of up to 4 months were introduced in Mexico and Spain during the year to assess the markets in these countries,” the group said.

“In the second half, we noted higher rolls into arrears for Mexico, Spain and Czechia. The higher arrears rolling through the book increased the CLR. As a consequence, granting criteria were tightened.”