Since opening its digital doors back in February 2019, TymeBank has been going from strength to strength adding more and more clients. Clients are able to sign up at several popular retailers such as Pick n Pay, Boxer or TFG.
The sign up process is fairly easy and quick and despite challenges like loadshedding and problems at Home Affairs (outages on their system) TymeBank continue to add clients.
1 Million New Clients in 5 Months
Recently, TymeBank CEO Coen Jonker announced that they had signed up around 200 000 people each month for the last 5 months. In total they passed an additional 1 million new clients in just the last 5 months.
This brings their total client sign ups to 8 Million South Africans. This means that one out of every five over 16s in South Africa now have a TymeBank account.
You may wonder though, are people maybe signing up and then not actually used their accounts?
For example, Capitec Bank have a staggering 21 Million customers. 10.2 Million of those clients make use of their banking app. Wow. What is interesting though its that they report that though many people have accounts they do not actively use them regularly. Or they have other accounts with other banks but then also occasionally use Capitec in the background. So Capitec Bank say they count their fully banked active clients as 7.5 Million people out of those 21 Million.
How Many Are Active?
TymeBank report that 70% of their accounts are “active” or in regular use.
That’s a fairly high percentage compared to some other credit providers.
Why are they so popular?
The ease and convenience of the sign up process is definitely a factor. As is the fee structure.
But interestingly one of TymeBank’s most popular products is a fixed savings account that can get 11% interest. Which is pretty decent. These accounts currently have about R1 Billion in deposits from clients sitting and accruing interest.
Being a SASSA grant disbursing supplier is also helping the bank bring more clients onboard and that makes sense as many grant beneficiaries also tend go shopping once they receive grant funds.
TymeBank have also acquired Retail Capital (a SME Funder) and now has 50 000 business clients. This is an area they are hungry to expand into.
So, the growth to date is undeniable and their client base looks set to carry on expanding in the near future.