{"id":843041,"date":"2025-11-13T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=843041"},"modified":"2025-11-13T11:44:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:44:58","slug":"end-of-an-era-for-billionaire-backed-bank-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/843041\/end-of-an-era-for-billionaire-backed-bank-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"End of an era for billionaire-backed bank in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African digital banking giant TymeBank, backed by billionaire Patrice Motsepe, is transitioning from a local finance group into a global institution, with its founders and early leaders heading the ambitious new era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank, as most of its customers know it today, was officially launched in 2019 by founders Coenraad Jonker and Tjaart van der Walt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, its roots trace back to 2012, where it began as a project at consultancy Deloitte, called “Take Your Money Everywhere” (TYME), a mobile money remittance operator funded by MTN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank had a rather complicated journey to launch, with a third founder, Rolf Eichweber, also involved, but not at the commercial launch of the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyme was spun out of Deloitte and was, for a time, owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), which acquired the group in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of 2018, the Tyme Digital team partnered with Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital (ARC) to buy the Tyme business from CBA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ARC is now the bank’s anchor shareholder with an effective majority stake in the group, alongside a diverse array of other international investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it had been operating as a bank for a few years, TymeBank officially launched operations to the public as a retail bank in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has since become a bona fide South African tech unicorn (a digital company valued over $1 billion), and one of the fastest-growing banks in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, TymeBank has also become much more than a local digital bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wider Tyme Group has stretched its ambitions in Asia, expanding into countries such as Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It operates as \u201cGoTyme\u201d in these markets and has confirmed that it will be changing its name and branding across the group in the first half of 2026 to GoTyme as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These operations fall under TymeGlobal, which was created in 2017 as the international arm of Tyme, and is headed by founders Jonker as executive chairman and CEO, and van der Walt as a director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A different Tyme for 2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the company’s attention has shifted to global operations, local changes have also been coming fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TymeBank launched with chief executive Sandile Shabalala at the helm. Shabalala had been part of the bank’s foundational team, serving as CEO from 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stepped down in 2019, soon after its commercial and wider public launch, leaving his deputy, Tauriq Keraan, to take charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keraan served as CEO until 2022, before he was moved into the wider group operations to establish Tyme in international markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, founder Coenraad Jonker took over, serving as both the Tyme Group Executive Chairman and TymeBank CEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonker stepped aside in 2024 to focus on the global operation, appointing executive for retail, Karl Westvig, in his stead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, after just over a year in the position, Westvig is also standing aside, with Cheslyn Jacobs assuming the role effective 1 January 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Westvig will continue in an advisory role, the bank said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacobs\u2019 appointment has already received approval from the Prudential Authority of the South African Reserve Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Jacobs was a founding team member of TymeBank, a recurring theme among all of its executives so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacobs joined Tyme in 2012 as Sales and Distribution Manager, later becoming National Operations Manager at Tyme Infield. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was then appointed Head of Sales and Services in 2019, when TymeBank launched, and was promoted to Chief Commercial Officer in 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has a BCom in Industrial Psychology from the University of the Western Cape and a  Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He previously worked at Standard Bank and Deloitte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Incoming TymeBank CEO Cheslyn Jacobs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Outgoing TymeBank CEO, Karl Westvig <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Coenraad Jonker Tymebank Founder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Former Tymebank CEO, Tauriq Keraan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Former Tymebank CEO, Sandile Shabalala<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African digital banking giant TymeBank, backed by billionaire Patrice Motsepe, is transitioning from a local finance group into a global institution, with its founders and early leaders heading the ambitious new era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":843065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[13455],"class_list":["post-843041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-tymebank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843041","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=843041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843076,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843041\/revisions\/843076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}