Super bank launching in South Africa

Discovery is set to reveal its super bank in October, with the company making the banking app the primary interface for its customers. 

This will open up significant cross-selling opportunities across Discovery’s businesses and generate exponential growth in its shared-value model. 

Discovery CEO Adrian Gore outlined why the company is building a super bank and what exactly it will be during his annual results presentation on 3 September. 

Gore said that Discovery Bank will launch the super bank offering officially in October, after years in the making. 

Discovery’s non-banking products are already integrated into the banking app, with the super bank taking this to the next level. 

Gore explained that while the most noticeable change for customers will be the banking app being their primary touchpoint, the real benefit is behind the scenes. 

The creation of a super bank will enable all of Discovery’s products to run on the bank’s infrastructure, making its technology stack more efficient. 

This also offers far better security for customers, with the bank having the most secure platform of any in the group. 

What has made the creation of a super bank obvious for Discovery is that the majority of new clients to the bank are from outside of the group. 

Gore revealed that 70% of the bank’s customers are completely new to the Discovery ecosystem, making it the main driver of client growth. 

This creates a substantial opportunity for the company to sell its other products, such as medical aid and short-term insurance, into this base. 

Discovery’s data show that the bank is the most effective channel for selling its other products. 

The average banking client opens another Discovery product within a year of joining. In contrast, a non-banking client takes 2.5 years to obtain another Discovery product. 

This can be seen in the right-hand graph from Discovery’s annual results presentation below. 

What the super bank is 

Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner has previously explained to Daily Investor what the super bank will be. 

“The terminology that we use is a ‘super bank’, which is a combination of a super app by offering more than just banking, but also is a platform for managing all of your financial services,” Kallner explained. 

“It is really kind of a state-of-the-art super app combined with a state-of-the-art digital bank. That gives you super bank capability.”

Now that the first phase of making Discovery Bank profitable has been achieved, the focus is firmly on realising this ambition. 

For the 2026 financial year, Discovery Bank posted its first annual profit of R370 million, an increase of 600%. 

“We will be very, very disappointed if we have not fully implemented what I have described to you by the end of the year,” Kallner said. 

“That is the kind of pace that we operate at here, and a lot of the components, I think, are already there.” 

Kallner has also referred to the super bank as the composite maker, noting its potential to significantly boost other parts of Discovery’s businesses. 

The creation of such a composite maker is very much the Holy Grail for South African financial institutions. 

South Africa’s largest banks and insurers have been developing this capability through a bancassurance model for years. 

However, none has been able to bring it to life in the way Discovery is describing. Being a significantly younger company, Discovery does have an edge. 

While South Africa’s major banks have to keep legacy systems operating to serivce older clients, Discovery has no such difficulty. 

“We give you access to your full Discovery portfolio in the app. You can activate motor insurance end-to-end in the app. You have access to the medical aid scheme and other Vitality benefits,” Kallner explained. 

“It was built with all of the shared-value architecture from the get-go, so it has the miles, active rewards, and all the behavioural components embedded in the app.”