Hiring for IT positions in South Africa’s banking industry showed strong growth in August, new data shows.<\/p>\n
According to Retail Banker International, citing GlobalData\u2019s Job Analytics database, the local banking and payments industry recorded an 11.8% rise in IT hires.<\/p>\n
Capitec told BusinessTech<\/a> at its headquarters in Stellenbosch last month that it is on a recruitment drive in the data and technology space. Wim de Bruyn, the chief information officer for Capitec, said the bank – the biggest in the country by customers – has targeted approximately 500 data people and technologists.<\/p>\n He said that more products have called for a larger pool of tech and data experts.<\/p>\n Similarly, Standard Bank<\/a> also increased its hiring budget in the tech space earlier in 2022, while FNB went on a hiring spree in the middle of last year – recruiting 300 experts with engineering, technology, data and quant skills.<\/p>\n According to GlobalData, Sanlam posted 132 IT jobs in August, followed by FirstRand with 101 jobs, Discovery with 80 IT jobs and Standard Bank Group with 51 jobs.<\/p>\n The most sought-after positions included the following:<\/p>\n While the country’s top banks have mostly all accelerated their digital strategies post Covid-19, they still see cash remaining key to their business as almost a third of their customers aren\u2019t ready to go cashless, according to a survey.<\/p>\n While 86% of people already use digital banking, almost all customers said they still withdraw cash at least once a month to meet various needs, Bloomberg reported, citing a survey conducted by Discovery Bank and Boston Consulting Group. As long as a significant percentage of the population uses cash, the country can\u2019t move to a fully cashless system, according to the report.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Africa still has a high reliance on cash relative to some other countries,\u201d Hylton Kallner, chief executive officer of Discovery’s banking unit. \u201cBut the direction, and the acceptance by consumers and embrace of digital payments, and the fact that they see the future in that direction, is accelerating.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly a quarter of surveyed South African adults expect to bank with a digital-only bank by 2023.<\/p>\n\n