Capitec, SA’s largest bank by customer numbers, has roped in former Mastercard executive Raghuvir Rai “Raghu”Malhotra as a nonexecutive director as the lender beefs its board with expertise in payments — an area in which it has been launching innovative products.
On Monday, the Stellenbosch-based bank said the appointment of Malhotra, who recently retired as president of global enterprise growth at Mastercard, was informed by the group’s payments and internationalisation strategy.
“Raghu has helped lead the transformation of Mastercard from a product-led credit card company into a multirail solution-oriented technology organisation,” it said.
“Raghu was a member of Mastercard’s executive leadership team, which sets and oversees the company’s strategy and Mastercard’s management committee, which ensures the implementation and delivery of the company’s strategic priorities at a global scale.”
Malhotra will take up his new role from March.
He holds an honours degree in commerce and an MBA, and is an alumnus of the University of Delhi, University of Melbourne and Harvard Business School, and is an international business, technology and finance executive with a proven track record of over three decades in driving organisational impact and elevating growth and profitability, Capitec said.
The bank, which has an army of 23-million customers, in January advised shareholders to expect a surge in profit when it reports its annual results for the year to end-February in April.
The lender, led by Gerrie Fourie, has been aggressive in launching new products, assisted greatly by the company’s 2-trillion data points that it uses to create value beyond banking, through its three businesses — retail banking, business banking and insurance — as it implements its strategic initiatives.
Capitec has invested about R6.3bn over the past three years on replatforming its IT systems, for stability, agility and scale, to Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud developed innovative payment solutions.
Capitec Connect is the lender’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business. MVNOs are usually non-telecom businesses — including FNB, Standard Bank Mobile, Mr Price Mobile and Pick n Pay — which lease network infrastructure from mobile operators to sell data and voice services to customers.
One recent innovation by the bank is Capitec Pay. It allows clients to enter their cellphone number on e-commerce sites and authenticate on the lender’s app without requiring card details in a bid to beat fraud.
Capitec’s diverse offering has been acknowledged by ratings agency S&P Global, which said the bank continues to improve its business profile through product offerings and client selection.
The group has increasingly diversified its products, balancing its mix of lending and transactional income by moving into higher-income earners and away from unsecured retail lending.
Capitec’s business profile also benefits from an increase in product offerings and target markets via a new business banking division, as well as retail insurance, including credit life and funeral.
Last year, the group took control of Avafin, which provides online consumer loan products in Poland, Latvia, Spain, the Czech Republic and Mexico, marking the beginning of the group’s geographical revenue diversification that is now concentrated in SA.
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