Capitec is closing in on Africa’s most valuable lender tag after outperforming the market over the past five years with its share price up nearly 350% in the period.
The Stellenbosch-based bank is now just R4bn shy of FirstRand’s market value of R416bn on the JSE. SA’s top six banks, FirstRand, Capitec, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Absa and Investec are worth a combined R1.5-trillion.
Capitec’s market value has gone up 348% in the past five years, taking the group’s worth to R412bn. FirstRand, whose brands include FNB, Rand Merchant Bank and WesBank, is up 96% in the period, while Africa’s largest bank by assets, Standard Bank, is up 121%.
Nedbank is up 137%, while Absa is up 120%, and Investec has surged 294% — the second-best performance in the sector behind Capitec in the period.
The outperformance of Capitec has seen the lender leapfrog Standard Bank as the country’s second most valuable bank, with the latter worth R371bn on the local bourse.
The growth of SA’s banks mirror the rally of the all-share index since the formation of the government of national unity a year ago.
The all-share index, the broadest measure of SA stock market performance, recorded its best first half of the year performance in 20 years, with market pundits expecting the index to breach the 100,000 points mark for the first time in the JSE’s 137-year history in the next few months.
Capitec’s outgoing CEO, Gerrie Fourie, has been handsomely rewarded for the group’s share price performance under his watch.
In its annual report published in April the bank said Fourie’s total remuneration for the 2025 financial year came in at R104m, including short-term incentives (STIs) and long-term incentives (LTIs) totalling R86m.
The LTIs of R75m were primarily driven by growth in the company’s return on equity, a surge in headline earnings and a more than 50% growth in the share price and, by extension, the group’s market capitalisation.
Ratings agency S&P last week said the economic risk for SA banks had reduced and the sector had entered an expansionary phase as investments in logistics, renewable energy and infrastructure open up lending opportunities.
The agency said the country’s leading lenders would also be aided by an expected uptick in household lending, which it expected to unfold at a measured pace.
On individual banks, S&P said it expected Investec’s asset quality indicators to continue improving, arguing that the group’s better-than-average creditworthiness supported its resilience and business stability. S&P also expects Absa’s profitability to slightly improve supported by growth in earning assets, noninterest income and lower credit provisions.
The agency is bullish on Capitec’s prospects, saying the Stellenbosch-based lender’s profitability is likely to remain strong and “above that of peers”.
On FirstRand, the agency does not expect a material increase in the bank’s capitalisation, which it sees as a negative rating factor.
The agency also sees Nedbank’s capitalisation as a negative rating factor, but highlighted that the lender’s asset quality metrics compare well with those of peers, expecting its credit losses to moderate to about 80 basis points in 2025, slightly below the expected sector average.
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