Armed with a client base of more than 24-million and buoyed by a record annual profit, Capitec is looking to roll out new loan products in its unrelenting pursuit of market share.
The lender on Wednesday said it will soon offer a “repay as you earn” loan for multiple income earners and small and medium-size enterprises.
The bank, which reported a record profit of R13.7bn in the year ended February, said it is ready to scale and grow further, with business banking a key cog to its growth blueprint.
The company is also looking for new impetus to its home loans offering — looking to gain market share in the R1.4-trillion sector.
“We have developed our offer to multiple income earners and encourage clients to use our direct loan and app channels to apply for credit,” the group chair and CEO said in a joint letter to shareholders. “We are geared for growth and will launch Capitec-funded, secured home loans in the first half of the 2026 financial year.
“We will enable clients to build their credit scores with an accessible credit card with a limit of R600, repayable within three months. Multiple-income earners and SMEs will qualify for our new repay-as-you-earn loans that will promote their growth.”
The lender also gave insights on how Capitec Business is gearing itself up to disrupt the sector, which aims to replicate its retail banking success.
“In 2025, we aligned transaction pricing for our business banking clients with the personal banking transaction pricing,” it said.
“We implemented a new merchant strategy and POS [point of sale] machines are now sold to merchants for a one-off payment instead of being rented to them. From September 1 2024 to November 30 2024, we held a POS machine sales promotion. We onboarded 39,367 merchants during the promotional period. This represented 69% of all new merchants onboarded during 2025.”
A breakdown of Capitec’s R13.7bn headline earnings, shows 44% from personal banking, while a combined 50% came from strategic initiatives and insurance, and 5% from business banking. Return on equity grew to 29% from 26% a year ago.
Picking fruit
CEO Gerrie Fourie said business banking is “low-hanging fruit” for the group to grow and further diversify its revenue streams.
“We have a very small base. Our loan book in business banking is only R23bn. This is where we see opportunities. We are grappling with how we provide a service model for our SMEs and the emerging markets,” he said.
The group’s business banking loan disbursements grew by 29%. Rival Nedbank, which has also set its sights on growing market share in the business banking sector, has singled out Capitec as key risk to its ambitions.
In its annual report published last week, Nedbank said SME lending has emerged as the next front for the country’s lenders.
“Small and-medium-enterprise banking has emerged as the next battleground, driven by enhanced digital capabilities at incumbent banks and the entry of non-traditional competitors,” it said.
“Key investor concerns include the potential impact of Capitec replicating its retail market successes in the SME market.”
Capitec shares were up almost 9% in early afternoon trade on Wednesday after the group reported annual earnings soared by almost a third and that it had added about 2-million new clients during the 2024 financial year.
With Jackie Mackenzie
Update: April 23 2025
This story contains new information throughout
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