{"id":836138,"date":"2025-08-27T15:29:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=836138"},"modified":"2025-08-28T11:17:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T09:17:55","slug":"new-bank-taking-on-capitec-officially-launches-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/836138\/new-bank-taking-on-capitec-officially-launches-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"New bank taking on Capitec officially launches in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa officially has a new bank, with OM Bank set to operate in the mass market segment, which Capitec dominates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OM Bank is owned by insurance giant Old Mutual, which couldn\u2019t share a new one due to regulations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a soft launch earlier this year, the bank is now officially open to the public. Money Account clients are now being switched over to the new banking app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An email sent to clients asked them to download the new OM Bank app and outlined steps for customers to transfer funds from their Money Account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOld\u202fMutual\u2019s new banking offering, OM Bank, is live. As a valued customer, you\u2019re among the first to be eligible to sign up to this new banking offering, ahead of everyone else,\u201d the email said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money Market Accounts will remain active until the end of 2026, after which transactions will be disabled.  \u201cYou can move your funds to OM Bank beforehand or to explore other options,\u201d the email said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Money Account product operates as a transactional banking account with a savings option and is administered through Bidvest Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bidvest Bank is undergoing a massive change, and it looks set to be taken over by Nigeria\u2019s Access Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old Mutual has spent just shy of R3.0 billion since 2022 in building its bank. It secured a banking licence in early 2024.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank is expected to post an annual loss rate of R1.1 billion and R1.3 billion, before becoming profitable in 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clarence Nethengwe has been appointed as the OM Bank CEO and was previously the Managing Director of the group\u2019s Mass and Foundation Cluster.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank\u2019s board of directors was also recently appointed, and Nomkhita Nqweni was named the inaugural chairperson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old Mutual plans to leverage its existing customer base, trusted brand and expansive distribution network to grow the bank.  It also plans to cross-sell investment and insurance to customers via the app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank is adopting a digital-first approach, similar to Tyme Bank, Discovery Bank, and Bank Zero, which have no bank branches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming after Capitec <\/h2>\n\n\n
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The bank will primarily focus on the mass retail market, which Capitec dominates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec is South Africa\u2019s largest bank by customers, with the group sitting at just below 25 million customers. It also took FirstRand\u2019s title<\/a> as the most valuable bank in South Africa earlier this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although OM Bank will battle Capitec in a new format, former Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie noted that the group had already competed for several years across their micro-lending businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec may seem like a monumental operation to overcome, but investors believe the bank can offer good value to the Old Mutual Group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark du Toit from OysterCatcher Investments<\/a> said that turning OM Bank from a loss-making entity into a profitable one will help further the group\u2019s growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new venture is also not Old Mutual\u2019s first foray into the world of banking, as it was the majority shareholder of Nedbank, one of the traditional \u201cBig Four\u201d banks, a decade ago, before exiting its stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa officially has a new bank following the public launch of OM Bank, which is set to take on Capitec. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":792369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[12875,1798,12923,4088,1110,20634,23479,13474],"class_list":["post-836138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bank-zero","tag-capitec","tag-discovery-bank","tag-firstrand","tag-old-mutual","tag-om-bank","tag-oystercatcher-investments","tag-tyme-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836138","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=836138"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836252,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836138\/revisions\/836252"}],"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=836138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}