South African digital banking group TymeBank has hit 3.45 million customers at the end of June 2021, onboarding around 5,000 customers daily.
TymeBank reported 3 million customers at the end of March 2021, pointing to the onboarding of 450,000 customers over the three months to 30 June 2021.
Its ambitions stretch further than this, however, with the group still expecting to see through its 2019 deal with the Zionist Christian Church (ZCC) to onboard a large proportion of the church’s 9 million member base.
“This initiative had largely been postponed due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the National Lockdown and should gain momentum once preventative Covid-19 measures are relaxed and it is reasonably safe to resume activities to onboard church members,” ARC said.
The bank expects to break even in 2022.
TymeBank has also made a splash with an enhanced value proposition to consumers by adding insurance, as well as a ‘buy now, pay later’ product called MoreTyme.
In the new financial year, the business will seek to get key existing products to scale, introduce new salary advance products, and implement various measures to diversify its customer profile, it said.
The data for TymeBank’s operations were contained in the annual financial results for African Rainbow Capital (ARC), for the year ended June 2021.
ARC holds an effective 57.7% stake in TymeBank, with a total gross investment of R1.17 billion, largely through ARC Financial Services Holdings (ARC FSH).
ARC FSH injected an additional R505 million into TymeBank and TymeGlobal during the year as part of scheduled capital requirements for the bank.
TymeBank and TymeGlobal secured additional equity funding of $110 million from ARC FSH and two new international shareholders, Apis Growth Fund II and JG Summit Holdings.
The additional equity funding is split into two tranches. The first tranche of $80 million was concluded post-signing of the agreements in April 2021. The second tranche was not yet concluded
at the time of reporting.
ARC reported growth of 16.3% in its Intrinsic Portfolio Value to R12.275 billion for the year (2020: R10.556 billion).
Cash in the ARC Fund was at R239 million (2020: R35 million), while the group executed a capital raise of R750 million through rights offer to shareholders in the year.
Intrinsic Net Asset Value Per Share decrease of 8.1% to R8.77 per share (2020: R9.54 per share) mainly due to the increased number of shares following the rights issue.
The group said that it expects the complications brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic to persist over the short to medium term.
“The impact of Covid-19 on our economy has been widely reported. As a leading investment holding entity we have made plans with the management teams of our leading investee companies to align the business growth objectives with the prevailing economic environment,” it said.
