South African digital bank TymeBank has reached its first months of profitability five years after launch.
TymeBank is currently one of the world’s fastest-growing digital banks, with over 8.5 million customers since launching in February 2019. The bank has no monthly banking fees, it takes less than five minutes to open an account and in most cases, transaction costs are 30- 50% lower than what customers would pay at other local banks.
Through a distribution partnership with Pick n Pay, Boxer, and TFG stores, TymeBank has over 1000 kiosks and 15,000 retail points in retail stores across the country. The bank says the model is a helping it to recruit up to 150,000 new customers each month.
Retail Capital, a division of TymeBank, is also positioned as the largest SME funder of its kind in the sector.
CEO of TymeBank, Coenraad Jonker says, “A recent study stated that less than 5% of all neobanks worldwide had reached profitability. And of those that are in the black, most have taken a lot longer to become profitable; notable examples being Latin America’s Nubank and London-based Monzo, which took eight and seven years respectively. Having achieved our first month of profitable operations in a significantly shorter timeframe is a South African success story that our 8.5 million customers can share with pride.”
Having moved into profit, Jonker says the bank's next goal is to become one of the top three banks in the country.
TymeBank’s anchor shareholder is African Rainbow Capital (‘ARC’). Other investors include Apis Growth Fund II (‘Apis’), Tencent, British International Investment (BII), the Gokongwei Group, the Tyme Management Investment Vehicle, Norrsken22 and the Ethos AI Fund.