{"id":858229,"date":"2026-04-23T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=858229"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:52:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:52:22","slug":"south-africas-most-valuable-bank-is-going-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/858229\/south-africas-most-valuable-bank-is-going-international\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s most valuable bank is going international"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Capitec is planning to launch internationally, but Group CEO Graham Lee says the plans remain at an incredibly early stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to BusinessTech following the group’s financial results for the 2026 financial year, Lee said that a team has been established to focus on the group’s international business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec is going international, but the bank is still in the planning stage of its strategy, with a newly-appointed team looking for opportunities across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec has 26 million active customers in the country and a market cap of R513 billion, making it the biggest bank in customer numbers and value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee said that the new team is scanning the whole world to find opportunities to launch the Capitec operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recently appointed CEO added that the bank will not just target emerging markets and will look for any gaps where the brand can utilise its expertise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CEO, who has also worked in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Nigeria, said that you cannot take a copy-and-paste approach, as every market differs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While international expansion remains part of the group’s growth path, it is still a long-term goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the group already has some international exposure, having acquired a majority stake in AvaFin in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AvaFin is a lender that is based in Poland, Spain, Mexico, Czechia, and Latvia. While established in many markets, AvaFin’s contribution to the group’s headline earnings was only 1% in FY2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of the international goals, Lee also said that the group is working on media and data services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee said that these new services will be designed to help its business banking clients effectively market to their clients and will improve its existing ecosystem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group financials <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
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Capitec Group CEO Graham Lee<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Lee’s first financial year-end after he replaced former CEO Gerrie Fourie started with a bang, with the group seeing a massive rise in earnings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For FY2026, headline earnings grew by 23% to R16.8 billion (FY2025: R13.7 billion). The group also upped its dividend per share by 23% to 7,980 cents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s net interest income also increased by 19% to R24.1 billion (FY2025: R20.2 billion), while interest income on lending grew by 14%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interest income was driven by 27% and 48% increases in loan disbursements for Personal Banking and Business Banking, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that targeted offers informed by data analytics drove Personal Banking lending, while scored lending drove growth in Business Banking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interest income on investments increased by 2% to R9.2 billion as the average cash and investment portfolio grew by 7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group added that the decline in the repo rate from 7.5% to 6.75% impacted investment yields, as did shifts toward floating-rate instruments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group\u2019s interest expenses declined by 8% to R9.2 billion despite a 5% increase in deposits and wholesale funding, driven by the repo rate decrease and restructuring of its savings accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group\u2019s total loan disbursements also grew by 34% to R98.3 billion, while its credit impairment charge on loans and advances increased by 21%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s credit loss ratio increased to 8.1%, with increases seen across all business units: business banking up to 2.4%, personal banking up to 8.2%, and AvaFin up to 53.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLonger-term products with maturities of up to 4 months were introduced in Mexico and Spain during the year to assess the markets in these countries,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the second half, we noted higher rolls into arrears for Mexico, Spain and Czechia. The higher arrears rolling through the book increased the CLR. As a consequence, granting criteria were tightened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metric<\/strong><\/td>Current Year<\/strong><\/td>Prior Year<\/strong><\/td>% Change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
Operating Profit before Tax<\/strong><\/td>R22.179 billion<\/td>R17.740 billion<\/td>+25%<\/td><\/tr>
Headline Earnings per Share<\/strong><\/td>14,606 cents<\/td>11,912 cents<\/td>+23%<\/td><\/tr>
Earnings per Share<\/strong><\/td>14,590 cents<\/td>11,911 cents<\/td>+22%<\/td><\/tr>
Total Dividend per Ordinary Share<\/strong><\/td>7,980 cents<\/td>6,510 cents<\/td>+23%<\/td><\/tr>
Net Asset Value (Total Equity)<\/strong><\/td>R59.513 billion<\/td>R50.914 billion<\/td>+17%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Capitec is going international, but the bank is still in the planning stage of its strategy, with a newly-appointed team looking for opportunities across the globe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":858254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[1798],"class_list":["post-858229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-capitec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858229","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=858229"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858253,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858229\/revisions\/858253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}