TymeBank has officially opened its digital doors to the public after a soft-launch in November last year.
The digital-only bank has launched with its EveryDay transactional account bundled with a savings tool called GoalSave, its MoneyTransfer solution and its TymeCoach App, which gives consumers free access to their credit report, supported by tips on how to make better decisions about money.
South Africa’s first fully digital bank has no branches, being hosted securely in the cloud, and says it will extend beyond the current suite of products over the coming months.
TymeBank is owned by African Rainbow Capital (ARC) Financial Services, a company within billionaire Patrice Motsepe’s Ubuntu-Botho Investments stable. It is South Africa’s first majority black owned bank focused on retail and business banking.
“We are planning to introduce credit products later this year, as well as an SME (small medium sized enterprise) proposition, but for now our focus is on getting simple and cost-effective banking solutions into people’s hands,” said TymeBank chief executive officer, Sandile Shabalala. “Our mission is to drive meaningful financial inclusion, by making banking more accessible to all South Africans.”
“We see it as our responsibility to take the complexity out of banking for consumers and to give them insights into how the financial system works.
“We believe that uncomplicated banking coupled with relevant knowledge will empower people to make more informed and responsible decisions about their own financial futures. Why shouldn’t banks be more transparent with customers about what they are paying for?”
ARC bought the bank from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in November 2018.
“TymeBank brought synergies that are complementary to ARC’s existing insurance and asset management businesses. Given ARC’s focus to, mostly, invest in businesses with established client pools, we’ll be looking for synergistic opportunities to the benefit of both the client and TymeBank,” said Tauriq Keraan, deputy CEO of TymeBank.
ARC will also be exploring the opportunity to offer affordable banking services to the client pools in the more than 40 investee companies in their portfolio as well as other business partners.
“TymeBank offers customers a unique value proposition. As TymeBank’s majority shareholder we support management to achieve their key objective of broadening access to banking for all people,” said Johan van Zyl, co-CEO of ARC.
Traditional banking in South Africa typically comes with operations that are expensive to maintain.
“We are leveraging our cloud-based technology which doesn’t come with a legacy burden and it’s one of the many reasons we’re able to pass cost savings onto the consumer. We have built an open banking platform, which allows us to move with speed with the partners we engage with,” said Shabalala.
TymeBank has created a network of partners including Pick n Pay and Boxer, with the former’s Smart Shopper programme now fully embedded into TymeBank’s technology stack. [image: image.png]
“We’ve partnered with companies whose business ethos aligns with what we want to do in the market, which is to do good.
“The customer will always be at the centre of our banking practices and going forward we will be doing some really exciting things with our partners, it will go way beyond just occupying floor space,” said Shabalala.
By joining forces with Pick n Pay and Boxer stores TymeBank said it has access to a relatively significant distribution footprint.
“By the time we complete our bank kiosk roll-out we will have 730 points of presence where customers can open accounts inside a Pick n Pay or Boxer store – we have over 500 bank-enabled kiosks in the market today.”
Even in stores without a bank-enabled kiosk, customers can still do their everyday banking transactions, TymeBank said.
There are over 14,000 till points across the Pick n Pay and Boxer network, where customers can withdraw money free of charge and deposit money for just R4, said Shabalala.
In the run up to its official launch, TymeBank acquired over 80,000 customers.
“We have a strong proposition, which competitors will find hard to match right now and the tens of thousands of customers that have opened and are using their accounts are testament to that,” said Shabalala.
TymeBank is part of a trio of banks launching into the South African market in 2019, with the other two banks including Bank Zero, thew brainchild of former CEO of FNB, and Discovery Bank, which is expected to launch its app in March.
Source: businesstech.co.za
