A new Discovery Bank is coming

Discovery Bank is set to reveal its new Super Bank offering in October, with it promising an overhaul of how individuals engage with Discovery’s products. 

This is the next phase for the bank under Hylton Kallner, with it achieving its first full year of profitability in the 2026 financial year. 

The bank, by all measures, has exceeded market expectations and even surprised Kallner and his team to the upside. 

Kallner told Daily Investor that while the banking reaching profitability was expected, its rate of growth has been far above expectations. 

“One thing that has been surprising is the uptake and the development now of the ancillary benefits. We never dreamed of being in this position,” Kallner explained. 

The ambition for the bank to become what Discovery calls a Super Bank depends on how attractive the banking offering has been outside the group’s ecosystem. 

In its latest financial results, Discovery revealed that 70% of the bank’s new customers have no products from the rest of the group. 

Thus, the bank has become Discovery’s primary growth driver, bringing in clients who can then access its full range of products. 

Kallner explained that this informed the creation of a Super Bank, which reached that inflexion point earlier than expected. 

With it now the primary growth engine for Discovery, management decided to use this growth to expand its broader offering. 

This is the bank operating as a composite maker, where it will be the platform on which all Discovery products are offered. 

However, Kallner is clear that the bank does not want the offering to be seen as a ‘super app’ where it just has multiple products and features. 

It aims to be the best banking offering in the market, with the broader Discovery product set leveraging the platform. 

This is possible because of the bank’s infrastructure, which already operates the payment rails for Vitality rewards, Discovery Miles, and other features. 

“That is what we have been working on for the last six months, as the building blocks started to emerge. That gave us the direction, and now it is the real roll-out of bringing everything into the bank,” Kallner said. 

“When you bring it all onto the bank platform, it really has the potential to accelerate every part of the business. So that’s where we are really focused now.” 

The Super Bank and exponential shared value

Kallner explained that Discovery’s Super Bank aims to be different to anything offered in South Africa, with the group’s full suite of financial products giving it a unique edge. 

“A digital bank might have really good banking functionality, while a super app has many different features. The Super Bank is more than a combination of the two,” Kallner said. 

“It will connect and orchestrate our clients’ entire banking, health, insurance, and investment world to generate exponential shared value.” 

The availability of all these products in one place will enable Discovery to personalise service across all its products. 

One of the benefits of this will be the exponential shared value through Discovery’s rewards programmes, which drives engagement and, in turn, lucrative non-interest revenue. 

Non-interest revenue comes from fees and commissions, which are highly profitable for a bank because they are capital-light compared with lending activities. 

“The reward stack is an important differentiator. As you manage your health and money better, the rewards multiply,” Kallner said. 

One example is a client’s healthy food benefit jumping from 5% to 50% if they manage their money well, with cheaper flights being another. 

“A Vitality member can get up to 25% back from managing their health, which then stacks up to 75% through the bank. This engagement is stacked across all different behaviours,” Kallner said. 

“This observed client behaviour is what is driving the whole bank strategy. Every time you do one thing that is good for you, it multiplies across different aspects of the portfolio.”

A key advantage of using the banking platform is that Discovery has access to client data on how they manage their money. 

This enables the company to personalise offers for other products in near real time based on how a client uses their money. 

Kallner said this is already being done, for example, to offer a lower entry price point on your Discovery Life policy. 

“We learn a lot about client needs very quickly in the bank, and it is easy for them to add relevant products,” he said. 

“For example, they can add Vitality with one click, and then they can go to the gym, get healthy food, and play the board game. The value is addictive.”

However, Kallner made it clear that it is not about cross-selling Discovery products into a retail banking base. 

“The integration is based around client behaviour and the value they monetise for clients. It is not about cross-selling. It is about the shared-value model offered to clients,” Kallner said. 

“Think about it: you have the full health insurance portfolio with medical aid, gap cover, Discovery Insure motor and household cover on a fully shared value basis, Discovery Invest, Discovery Life, and the Vitality platform with all its behavioural components.” 

“Being able to deliver all of that in a single, fully integrated structure built on a shared-value foundation and to provide access to these ecosystems is entirely unique.”