Takealot creates home loan platform with MortgageMarket

Takealot has entered the home loans market, creating a marketplace for such services in partnership with MortgageMarket, the Naspers backed e-commerce platform announced on Monday.

Of Naspers’ two businesses in SA, Takealot is the unit most representative of the group’s global ambition to create e-commerce ecosystems in its various operating countries and regions. 

Takealot Group, comprising online retailer Takealot.com and food delivery and logistics unit Mr D, looks to be creating another ecosystem — access to finance for homes.

As such, MortgageMarket, SA’s first independent online home loan marketplace, has partnered with Takealot to launch the Takealot Home Loan Hub — “a fully digital platform that empowers South Africans to access the best home-loan offers from the country’s top banks”.

Through the partnership, the loan hub will allow customers to apply for financing as “seamlessly as shopping online”. As a sweetener, the partners are giving up to R20,000 in Takealot vouchers to customers when a home loan is registered.

The system allows customers to:

• Get preapproved via a soft credit check to assess affordability and credit score.
• Receive offers within 48 hours from banks, including Nedbank, Standard Bank, Absa, FNB, Investec, RMB and Housing Investment Partners.

MortgageMarket is selling the promise of its platform, saying customers can “compare deals transparently, with no paperwork, no middlemen, no queues and no uncertainty”.

The company has been in business since 2020, quickly rising to become the third-largest bond originator in SA, competing with the likes of SA Home Loans and Better Bond. Co-founder and CEO Tim Akinnusi is a former managing executive for home loans at Absa as well as previously serving as executive head for home-loan sales at Nedbank.

Akinnusi’s company is looking to take up market share as structural shifts take place in the local property market.

With recent interest rate cuts improving affordability and more first-time buyers entering the market, MortgageMarket and Takealot say they are delivering “a timely solution”.

For MortgageMarket, the deal with Takealot builds on its growing list of collaborations, which already includes MTN and EasyEquities.

“This partnership with Takealot is about reshaping the way South Africans experience one of the most important financial decisions of their lives,” said Akinnusi.

“By combining MortgageMarket’s cutting-edge home loan marketplace with Takealot’s trusted e-commerce ecosystem, we’re not only simplifying access to home loans but also building financial confidence for first-time buyers and young professionals, and growing families across the country.”

This comes as Naspers is banking on investment in AI and logistics to boost Takealot, even as SA’s largest e-commerce platform continues to bleed money.

In the year to March, Takealot reported another year in the red with an adjusted loss before interest and tax of $13m (R230m) compared with $14m in 2024.

In the period, Takealot generated about $1.64bn gross merchandise value — the total value of merchandise sold over a given period through a customer exchange site, up 13% over the previous period. Revenue grew 10% in the period to $872m, driven by investments in logistics, enhanced customer offerings and the TakealotMore subscription service.

Mr D revenue grew 8%, with an 81% increase in grocery gross merchandise value and an improved adjusted loss before interest and tax of $4m, “despite tough trading conditions”.

gavazam@businesslive.co.za