{"id":824794,"date":"2025-05-20T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=824794"},"modified":"2025-05-21T12:27:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T10:27:21","slug":"the-man-running-one-of-south-africas-fastest-growing-banks-worth-r27-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/824794\/the-man-running-one-of-south-africas-fastest-growing-banks-worth-r27-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"The man running South Africa’s fastest-growing R27 billion bank"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Karl Westvig was recently appointed CEO of TymeBank, following over two decades of leading major financial services companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Westvig took over on 1 October 2024, taking over as the bank’s former CEO. Coenraad Jonker became the Executive Chairman of the Tyme Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He served as the CEO of the Retail and Business Banking division after joining in 2023 and brought a wealth of experience to the role, having founded and led several companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After working with the Foschini Group and Direct Axis throughout the 1990s, Westvig became the CEO of the RCS Group when it launched in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially founded by TFG and now owned by French bank BNP Paribas, the RCS Group serves over 2.2 million retail credit customers in collaboration with more than 600 brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He left his role as CEO in 2008 but stayed on as a non-executive director until 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then became the chairman and founder of Como Capital, a venture capital fund that invested in several businesses in credit, protein trading, and the recruitment industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, he also co-founded two companies: JobCrystal, a career management service, and Redwood Software, a third-party processing business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years later, he became the Group CEO of the Mauritius-based African Finance Bank (AFB), which was building a consumer finance business in Africa, excluding South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After departing AFB in 2015, he would take over as CEO of Retail Capital in 2015, having served as its chairman since 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retail Capital provided accessible and flexible alternatives to traditional business loans for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company used data science and analytics to enhance the speed and cost-effectiveness of the capital available to our clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This made it easier for businesses to secure funding without the hidden costs of excessive interest rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of his business interests, Westvig served on the board of the non-profit Kuyasa Fund, which uses microfinance to improve the housing conditions of South Africa\u2019s poor communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also a fellow at the Africa Leadership Initiative SA and the ASPEN Institute, which both help entrepreneurs improve their leadership skills through networking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also highly involved at his former high school, Wynberg Boys High, and founded the Old Boys Legacy Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fund provides financial assistance to students in need and hopes to build a sustainable endowment. Launched in 2023, it raised R50 million in just two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining TymeBank<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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Retail Capital would become part of the TymeGroup in December 2022 for R1.5 billion, with Westvig joining as the CEO of Retail and Business Banking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is an incredible synergy between Retail Capital and TymeBank, starting with the ethos to provide affordable banking to consumers and businesses,” said Westvig at the time of the acquisition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The cultural fit is seamless, and the power of Tyme\u2019s technology, distribution and deposits and Retail Capital\u2019s funding capabilities make this a very natural partnership.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TymeBank reached its first month of profitability in December 2023, less than five years since its February 2019 launch, becoming the first digital bank in Africa to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank will also hit its 10 million customer mark in October 2024 and have dispersed R12 billion in funding to SMEs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of South Africa, the group also benefited from the performance of GOTyme Bank, which is already the fastest-growing bank in the Philippines with three million customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group is also looking for further growth in Vietnam and Indonesia, and it aims to list the business in 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2024, the group was valued at $1.5 billion (roughly R27 billion at the time) and is building scale as it prepares for its initial public offering, with listings planned for New York and Johannesburg. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karl Westvig recently took over as the CEO of TymeBank after joining the group in early 2023 due to the R1.5 billion acquisition of Retail Capital. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":817417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[22613,11538,22611,3672,22612,22609,13455,22197],"class_list":["post-824794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-african-finance-bank","tag-bnp-paribas","tag-direct-axix","tag-foschini","tag-jobcrystal","tag-rcs","tag-tymebank","tag-tymegroup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824794","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=824794"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825016,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824794\/revisions\/825016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}