{"id":356763,"date":"2019-11-25T10:12:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T08:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=356763"},"modified":"2019-11-25T10:12:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T08:12:54","slug":"one-of-south-africas-largest-employers-says-its-fintech-is-making-a-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/356763\/one-of-south-africas-largest-employers-says-its-fintech-is-making-a-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"One of South Africa’s largest employers says its FinTech is making a killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pepkor on Monday (25 November), reported a 9% rise in revenue for the year ended September 2019, to R69.6 billion, “despite a very difficult retail environment where consumer spending remained constrained, fuelled by high levels of unemployment and low economic growth”.<\/p>\n

Operating profit declined 5.5% to R5.5 billion, while operating profit from continuing operations and before capital items increased by 15.6% to R6.8 billion.<\/p>\n

Diluted headline earnings per share was up 14% to 96.2 cents per share, however, basic earnings per share declined by 22.5% to 64.6 cents – due mainly to an impairment charge related to The Building Company.<\/p>\n

A scrip dividend was declared, with a cash alternative of 20.9 cents per share – down from 27.8 cents in the prior year.<\/p>\n

Pepkor – one of the largest employers in the South African retail sector with 56,100 employees – continued its expansion and opened 338 new stores, expanding the group\u2019s footprint to 5,415 stores.The retailer operates in 12 African countries<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Pepkor said that its FinTech segment increased revenue by 43.9% to R7.2 billion, with operating profit increasing to R483 million.<\/p>\n

It said that the FLASH business continues to report strong growth, completing on average 3.2 million daily transactions with virtual turnover growth exceeding 20%.<\/p>\n

FLASH is a technology-driven company committed to making people\u2019s lives easier. Its hardware and applications offer informal traders an affordable and safe payment system through which to do business in their communities.<\/p>\n

The number of FLASH traders increased to 169,000 from 145,000 last year and the business continues to invest in future growth, Pepkor said.<\/p>\n

Capfin, the group’s loan business, “performed well, appealing to a broader range of customers through its digital channels”.<\/p>\n

“It further successfully established its own internally funded credit book, which remains healthy with credit performance meeting expectations,” Pepkor said.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Pekor said that the current environment provides opportunities for market share expansion.<\/p>\n

It said it will target new geographies for FLASH – particularly in the informal market.<\/p>\n

“Organic expansion opportunities remain top of mind, including store footprint expansion, the development of new retail formats and the creation of new channels through which to serve our customers.<\/p>\n

“The group will continue to focus on market share expansion and improving operating cost efficiencies.”<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Checkers\u2019 new online service will deliver groceries to your door within 60 minutes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pepkor has reported a 9% rise in revenue for the year ended September 2019, to R69.6 billion, “despite a very difficult retail environment where consumer spending remained constrained, fuelled by high levels of unemployment and low economic growth”.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":356805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[14539,26,4076],"class_list":["post-356763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-capfin","tag-headline","tag-pepkor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356763"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356813,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356763\/revisions\/356813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}