{"id":816930,"date":"2025-03-19T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=816930"},"modified":"2025-03-19T08:03:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T06:03:03","slug":"four-new-banks-coming-to-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/816930\/four-new-banks-coming-to-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Four new banks coming to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s large and respected banks will face more competition from several new banks that are planning to launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s banking space has been dominated by the “Big Four” – Standard Bank, Nedbank, Absa, and FNB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These banks offer customers retail, corporate, and investment banking services and earn billions in profits yearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, new competitors, including retail mass-market player Capitec, have tried to take power away from the top four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec now has the most customers of any bank in South Africa, with 23 million customers joining the bank. This is a massive achievement considering it only launched at the start of the century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another recent shift has seen the opening of several digital banks that do not have any branches and conduct the vast majority of their interactions with clients online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes Tymebank, which recently reached 10 million customers; Discovery Bank, which utilises the group’s Vitality rewards program; and Bank Zero, which aims to cut bank fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite being one of the most advanced and well-regulated banking sectors in emerging markets, the banking industry still faces many headwinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes weak economic growth in South Africa, regulatory changes, poor financial inclusion, and lower-income South Africans’ education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges include economic volatility, regulatory changes, and financial inclusion efforts to expand banking access to underserved communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, several private and state institutions plan to open new banks in South Africa shortly, with OM Bank, Postbank, YWBN Mutual Bank and SAIFSC in the works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OM Bank<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Old Mutual’s Joburg Office<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The only bank with a known launch time frame is OM Bank. The Old Mutual-run bank will have a soft launch in Q2 of 2025 and a wider public launch in Q4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank, which can\u2019t have Old Mutual\u2019s name due to regulations, will target the retail mass market dominated by Capitec. It will offer transactional banking and credit products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new bank will be digital-first, which it believes will add greater convenience to customers in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it will be a digital-first bank, Old Mutual will use its existing branch networks to broaden its customer branding experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank\u2019s leadership will include Nomkhita Nqweni as chair and Clarence Nethengwe as CEO. The latter formerly headed the Mass and Foundation Cluster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Postbank<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The state is also looking to launch an official bank via the Postbank, which will focus on expanding services to rural and lower-income communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite already offering some financial services, Postbank was strictly a savings subsidiary. The signing of the passed Postbank Amendment Bill will greatly expand the bank’s offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bill, signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in September 2023, transferred the bank’s shareholding from the struggling South African Post Office to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This allowed for the creation of a bank-controlling company, Postbank SoC Limited, allowing Postpank to become a fully-fledged state-owned bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi recently invited nominations for the inaugural board of Postbank SoC Limited. Applications closed in mid-February 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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YWBN Mutual Bank<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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Young Women in Business Network after getting its banking licence<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The Young Women in Business Network (YWBN) was registered in January 2024 and is the first women-owned bank in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After receiving its approval from the Prudential Authority, the bank said that it would spend 2024 focusing on its bank build, with a launch scheduled for 2025 or later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opened in 2018, YWBN operated as a cooperative financial institution (CFI), which can only offer services to its members. It will convert from a CFI to a fully fledged mutual bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike commercial banks, Mutual Banks are owned by their depositors, who become shareholders and make decisions during general meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite still not launching, our sister publication, Daily Investor, reported that the bank is already undergoing a name change to Nthabeleng Likotsi Mutual Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The change will be named after its founder, Nthabeleng Likotsi and is subject to approval from the Prudential Authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SAIFSC<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (the DWYPD) has also announced plans to open a new cooperative bank in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new bank is set to be called the South Africa Innovative Financial Services Cooperative (SAIFSC). However, due to regulatory issues, the bank missed the proposed launch in July 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prudential Authority and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) asked the bank to provide additional documents to finalise the application to become a cooperative bank in August 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department’s latest implementation plan indicates that the bank could launch in 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the last financial year, the bank had just over 450 members and a balance of R279,000. It hopes to expand these figures by recruiting more customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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South Africa, which already has numerous large and respected banks, is set to get more competition with several new banks planning to launch operations in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":792369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[1110,3784,22031],"class_list":["post-816930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-old-mutual","tag-postbank","tag-ybwn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816930","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816930"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817595,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816930\/revisions\/817595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}