TymeBank’s monster growth – 200,000 customers signing up every month

TymeBank announced today (10 October) that it has onboarded eight million customers as of 6 October 2023, which means one in every five eligible (16 years and older) South Africans now has a TymeBank account.

Commenting on this latest milestone, TymeBank CEO Coen Jonker said: “We are immensely proud of the fact that we have acquired eight million customers since launching in February 2019. 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.”

“This pace of growth also brings us closer to our ambition of becoming one of the top three retail banks in the country,” he added.

Jonker noted that TymeBank’s customer acquisition rate has continued to accelerate, with more than 200,000 customers signing up every month and a 70% account activity rate on a rolling 30-day basis.

“What is particularly pleasing is the fact that the last million customers were acquired in record time – just under five months, despite ongoing challenges,” he said.

“Our success can also be attributed to our tried-and-tested ‘phygital’ model, which seamlessly integrates the convenience of digital banking into physical retail ecosystems, while the strength of our partnerships with leading retailers such as Pick n Pay, Boxer and more recently TFG, allows us to optimise our distribution network,” said Jonker.

According to the bank, growth has been achieved despite ongoing outages at Home Affairs, which hinders the bank’s ability to securely verify customers’ identities during the onboarding process.

Loadshedding has also had an impact. Although TymeBank kiosks have battery backup, load shedding affects the operation of stores and shopping centres, and intermittent power supply compromises the network operators the bank relies on for moving data.

Recent developments

Since launching PayShap in August as the only bank to allow payments to mobile numbers linked to any bank account for free, TymeBank has seen a steady increase in the usage of this real-time payment service.

The bank’s fixed deposit product – launched earlier this year and offers South Africa’s best savings rates (11%) – has also been a huge success.

“We continue to see huge demand for our unique proposition that combines free banking and South Africa’s best savings rates. This has broadened our appeal among more affluent consumers, and we are now approaching R1 billion in balances for our fixed deposit product,” said TymeBank Chief Commercial Officer Cheslyn Jacobs.

On the other end of the spectrum, TymeBank continues to gain traction among SASSA recipients.

“We have put great effort into disbursing SASSA grants to beneficiaries, and customer growth in that segment is solid. Our model is ideal for grant beneficiaries, and more and more of them are choosing us to get their grant payments efficiently,” said Jacobs.

TymeBank’s acquisition of Retail Capital, a large SME funder, is also yielding good results.

The bank now funds over 50,000 businesses with ~R9.5 billion of working capital, and its funding portfolio has grown by 20% since the Retail Capital business was acquired in December last year.

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