TymeBank Aims to Raise $100 Million to Fund South Africa Expansion

TymeBank is reportedly trying to raise at least $100 million to expand in its home country.

“In South Africa, we want to be the fastest-growing bank,” CEO Coen Jonker said, per a Thursday (June 6) Financial Times (FT) report. “We want [to] be in the top three in customer numbers and from a return on equity perspective. Initial engagement with investors [has] encouraged us to consider raising a larger round to enable the group to accelerate the pursuit of further attractive opportunities that we currently see in the industry.”

TymeBank began by offering a debit card with no fees and a transactional bank account to attract consumers, the report said. About 11 million people in South Africa — or 20% of the population — are either unbanked or underbanked.

In 2022, TymeBank acquired FinTech loan company Retail Capital. The bank also offers health and funeral insurance. Customers can open accounts online or at “self-service” kiosks at retailers around South Africa, according to the report.

“They’ve done well in gaining account openings in a lower income demographic,” Kokkie Kooyman, director and portfolio manager at Denker Capital, said in the report. “…The challenge — and it is now starting — in that market segment is not only to have people open accounts, but also to make them your primary bank account.”

In related news, there has been a rise in “banking deserts” in the United States. In these locations, people do not have a conveniently located bank and broadband is often hard to come by, thus making digital and brick-and-mortar banking a challenge.

But with efforts in place to expand broadband access in the U.S., the raw material is there for wider use of mobile channels even where physical branches may be scarce.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The 2024 Credit Union Innovation Readiness Index” found that digital banking and mobile banking are gaining in popularity with consumers, especially at credit unions. Ninety percent of top-performing credit unions saw an increase in member satisfaction with their mobile app over the past year, while 83% observed a rise in the number of mobile app downloads.