The financial services group Capitec announced on Tuesday April 13 that it had adopted a digitization solution to satisfy its customers and limit the negative impacts of the coronavirus on its activities. South Africa’s largest digital bank said it increased digital adoption by its customers by 28% to over 8.6 million.
The bank also reported a 35% increase in the number of digital transactions to 1.1 billion. Based on reported statistics, customers completed 526 million banking app transactions (2020: 327 million) and 536 million USSD transactions (2020: 454 million) in fiscal 2021.
Gerrie Fourie, CEO of Capitec Bank, said that “the bank’s agility and technology has manifested itself during the Covid-19 pandemic as it acted quickly to counter the impact on its customers and business operations” . The manager added that “his facility has embraced innovation and digitization, as have customers, and the ongoing benefits and cost savings are expected to materialize in the years to come.” “Customers are now more motivated than ever to use digital channels, including the new banking app, as they prepare to benefit from lower transaction fees and zero-rate data charges,” he concluded.
Over the past year, the bank continued to grow its active customer base by an average of 160,000 customers per month, an increase of 14% to 15.8 million customers.
Meanwhile, Capitec said a recovery occurred during the six months ended February 2021. In this dynamic, overall profit rose 18% to 3.9 billion rand (267 million USD). during the last six months of its annual period until the end of February 2021. On this, the group said it had revised upwards the final dividend, from 1600 cents per ordinary share in February 2021 against 755 cents per share in February 2020.
