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<\/a><\/p>\nThe group said that savings statistics in South Africa paint a dire picture of the financial state of health. Debt-to-income levels are at a record high, meaning people have little disposable income to save or invest.<\/p>\n
“More importantly, 40% of consumers are struggling to make debt repayments and fewer than 10% are prepared for even an adequate retirement. Addressing this state of financial ill health has been a driving force behind the design of Discovery Bank,” it said.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s time to kickstart a new set of behaviours around money by encouraging financial resilience that comes with additional reward.”<\/p>\n
Vitality Money<\/strong><\/p>\n The bank will use personalised interest rates and attractive rewards from a network of partners.<\/p>\n “No other bank has taken on the challenge of improving its clients\u2019 financial wellness in a fast, personalised and tangibly rewarding way, Discovery said.<\/p>\n People-centric banking<\/strong><\/p>\n As with all Discovery products, Discovery Bank has been designed around people, not for them.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s personalised to cater for individual spending and saving habits. It can also be integrated with other Discovery products, resulting in more affordable life insurance, faster growing investments, smarter insurance and convenient health payments.”<\/p>\n Banking on data and tech \u201csignificant progress has been made in developing infrastructure, operating processes and the customer value proposition,\u201d said Gore of the run-up to Discovery Bank.<\/p>\n “The result is a fully digital bank with app-based transacting and no need for physical branches at all. This all-digital approach o\ufb00ers a level of interaction and personalisation that gets people engaged and excited about becoming financially savvy.”<\/p>\n The bank will offer a number of personalised tools, using data from various sources to deliver spend management and financial planning features to customers.<\/p>\n Gore said the bank would offer interest rates based on a client\u2019s Vitality Money status, with Diamond customers having lower interest rates.<\/p>\n These integrations with existing Discovery products will enable users to access better interest rates, life insurance premiums, and more accessible payments to these services.<\/p>\n Gore said that Vitality reward points can be monetised and deposited into a Discovery Bank account.<\/p>\n Banking accounts<\/strong><\/p>\n Discovery Bank will offer a basic Discovery 1 account in addition to a comprehensive Discovery 1 Plus product.<\/p>\n Discovery 1 will be offered as the bank\u2019s core account, functioning as a fusion of the Discovery credit card and a transactional account.<\/p>\n Customers will earn an interest rate on their account balances and the product also includes a Vitality savings account, into which all the cash-backs and rebates for Vitality will be paid.<\/p>\n The Discovery 1 Plus account will offer a more comprehensive experience, including separate credit and transactional functionality and dynamic interest rates.<\/p>\n There will be no set fees for the Discovery 1 account, with customers instead paying as they transact.<\/p>\n The Discovery 1 Plus account will include a bundled market-related fee which Discovery said it will not yet disclose, but all transactions will be free.<\/p>\n Additionally, all Discovery Bank payments reflect instantly and the bank offers real-time EFTs to all other banks in addition to third-party payment platforms such as Samsung Pay.<\/p>\n
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