TymeBank has amassed 8 million SA customers

TymeBank has now reached eight million South African customers since launching in 2019.

The digital bank announced its multi-million client milestone on Tuesday, adding that one in five eligible customers has a TymeBank account.

Set on its upward trajectory, the bank also reported a customer acquisition rate of 200,000 clients signing up every month, as well as 70% monthly account activity.

TymeBank CEO, Coen Jonker said he was proud of the bank’s multi-million customer base.

“We are immensely proud of the fact that we’ve acquired eight million customers since launching,” he said.

“Our performance reinforces our position as one of the world’s fastest growing digital banks and a credible alternative to the legacy banks for South Africans,” he added.

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Against all odds

The bank cited load shedding and Home Affairs system outages as challenges it had to deal with recently.

The bank said though its kiosks had battery backups, they were affected by network interruptions as a result of load shedding.

Meanwhile, outages at Home Affairs interfered with the bank’s ability to securely verify customers’ identities during the on-boarding process.

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Significant growth

TymeBank launched PayShap in August, a real-time service which allows payments to mobile numbers linked to any bank account for free – becoming the first bank to have an app of this kind.

The digital bank has reported a steady increase in the app’s usage, while its fixed deposit offering, also launched this year, has proved to be a success.

The bank said it had also gained traction among Sassa grant recipients.

“We have put great effort into disbursing Sassa grants to beneficiaries, and customer growth in that segment is solid,” said Cheslyn Jacobs, Chief Commercial Officer at TymeBank.

“Our model is an ideal one for grant beneficiaries – more and more of them are choosing us to get their grant payments efficiently,” he added.

TymeBank’s acquisition of Retail Capital has also yielded great results, as the bank now funds more than 50,000 businesses with R9.5 billion of working capital.

Meanwhile, the bank also reported that its funding portfolio had grown by 20% since acquiring Retail Capital last December.

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