{"id":864004,"date":"2026-06-18T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T14:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=864004"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:07:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:07:30","slug":"end-of-a-25-year-era-for-capitec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/864004\/end-of-a-25-year-era-for-capitec\/","title":{"rendered":"End of a 25-year era for Capitec"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Capitec has announced the retirement of Dr Chris Otto from its board, who has worked with the group since its inception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otto, a founding non-executive director of the group, will retire from the board effective 31 July 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec said that Otto has served on the board since the group’s inception and has been instrumental in its stewardship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec expressed its gratitude to Otto for his dedication, strategic direction, and invaluable contributions to its success.

He will also retire as a member of the Risk and Capital Management Committee on 31 July 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In just 25 years, Capitec has grown from a micro-loan provider into the nation’s largest bank by customer numbers, with over 26 million. The bank currently has a market cap of R544 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otto co-founded PSG Group in 1995 alongside billionaire Jannie Mouton. The pair dreamed of building a financial services conglomerate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PSG Group played a massive role in the growth of several key South African companies, including Capitec, Curro, Stadio, the KAL Group, and PSG Financial Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to being part of the team that founded Capitec Bank in 2001, he also founded Zeder Investments in 2006, which focuses on developing the agribusiness industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Stellenbosch at the graduation ceremony for the Faculties of Law and AgriSciences in December 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also served as the founding chairman of the Stellenbosch Law Faculty Trust. The trust offered bursaries for postgraduate studies, funding to support research and training initiatives for staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trust assisted in establishing the Chair in Social Justice, the Gys Steyn Chair in Financial Regulation Law, and the Chair in Urban Law and Sustainability Governance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also founded the Otto Foundation with his daughter, Zephne Ladbrook, in 2016. The fund aims to advance social justice in South Africa through projects that improve early literacy. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr Chris Otto (left) receiving his honorary doctorate from Stellenbosch University<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Capitec co-founder Dr Chris Otto will resign from the group’s board of directors next month, having been with the group since its formation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":859361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[1798,13043],"class_list":["post-864004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-capitec","tag-psg-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864004","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=864004"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864028,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864004\/revisions\/864028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}