Capitec has signed a deal to integrate local start-up stub’s accounting software for small and micro businesses into its banking platform.
This is yet another move by SA’s largest retail lender, underscoring its strategy to increase and keep customers by offering a growing list of products, using its trove of data and insights to do so.
The deal forms part of Capitec’s broader strategy to take up a bigger piece of SA’s fast-growing informal and micro-business sector, which accounts for an estimated R750bn in annual turnover.
On Tuesday, Capitec said it had enabled direct integration between stub’s digital accounting software and its transactional data application programming interface (API).
Competing in an accounting software market dominated by Xero, Quickbooks, Sage, Zoho and others, stub has positioned itself as “a simple and affordable alternative” to spreadsheets and other manual accounting solutions.
Founded in 2023, the company specialises in building software that makes it as easy as possible for business owners with no finance experience or expertise to track sales, manage expenses, get paid and access financial records in real time.
The platform was founded by a team of former bankers who originally wanted to build a bank for start-ups. That journey resulted in a pivot to accounting when they realised the gap for a basic and easy-to-use accounting platform for small business owners.
This the first such integration for Capitec.
In computing, an API refers to a set of rules that allows different software applications to communicate with each other. These interfaces are used to share data, enable features and integrate systems among a host of capabilities.
The integration allows transaction data to flow directly from Capitec clients’ accounts into the stub accounting platform, eliminating the need for manual data capturing or other workarounds.
“For small business owners, this means always having up-to-the-second insight into their income and expenses, enabling them to stay on top of their cash flow and business performance,” said stub.
The solution even automatically reconciles payments with associated invoice numbers and categorises expenses to the appropriate accounts, “saving small business owners time and effort”.
“We launched two-and-a-half years ago to provide entrepreneurs with simple, accessible and powerful tools to enable them to build successful businesses,” says Tayla Dandridge, co-founder and CEO at stub.
“Our integration with Capitec bridges a critical gap for small business owners, many of whom haven’t had access to tools that integrate with the way they actually bank and work. Capitec shares our belief that entrepreneurs and hustlers are at the heart of SA’s economy. As a start-up with big ambitions for the future, we are proud to work with a bank that’s enabling the kind of innovation and accessibility to fintech tools that our entrepreneurs and small businesses need.”
Over the years, Capitec has grown to prominence by taking on, and going after, customers at the lower end of SA’s socioeconomic ladder. Using its vast trove of data, the bank is able to quickly understand customer behaviour, trends and economic realities faced by its users.
That capability has given the bank a nuanced understanding of the local market and the gaps that need to be filled.
Stub’s direct integration supports Capitec personal accounts.
According to the bank, the integration recognises the reality that “many SA entrepreneurs — from spaza shop owners and tradespeople to freelancers and side hustlers — run their businesses through personal bank accounts.”
Capitec business payments executive head Chris Zietsman said, “By automatically linking banking data to accounting software, we’re removing one more barrier to running a business. This is our first API integration of this nature with a business software provider — a key milestone in our ongoing efforts to support the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem through innovation and inclusion.”
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