South Africa getting a ‘super bank’ this year

Discovery Bank is currently transforming its banking app into what the company calls a “super bank” that will become the single touchpoint for all of a client’s Discovery products. 

These products, ranging from life insurance to investment products, will be offered through the banking app, creating a single platform for Discovery’s South African clients to engage with the company’s offerings. 

This is the second phase of the bank’s strategy, which it completed by posting its first profit in Discovery’s recently released interim results for the six months ended 31 December 2025. 

Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner told Daily Investor that he expects the “super bank” to be fully operational before the end of 2026, with Discovery’s products already integrated into the banking app. 

“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.” 

Discovery Bank is already quite far down the road towards creating the super bank, with it steadily integrating plugins from its partners, such as EasyEquities and Luno, and incorporating Discovery products. 

Discovery CEO Adrian Gore explained that it is natural for the banking app to become the single interface for clients in South Africa, due to it having the payment rails, security, and shared-value architecture.  

The first phase of building a bank that is scalable and profitable has been completed, with it now becoming the composite maker for the Discovery Group by bringing clients into the ecosystem. 

Over 70% of Discovery Bank’s new clients do not have an existing Discovery product, making them completely new to the group and making the bank the key growth vector for all of the company’s other products. 

“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.” 

The composite maker

The creation of a Discovery super bank would be the accomplishment of a target that has proven elusive for financial services providers. 

Banks, in particular, have been striving to create integrated financial service providers that can meet all the financial needs of a client in a single place. 

While South Africa’s largest banks have the assets to do this, execution has proven tricky as they look to cross-sell their investment and insurance offerings into a retail client base that has solved these needs elsewhere. 

Discovery Bank is unique in that a large chunk of its clients already have other products with Discovery, and it was designed to become the single interface for clients across the group from day one. 

“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.” 

This is not only important from an ease-of-use perspective for clients, but is also likely to prove highly lucrative for Discovery as it will be able to sell its other products to the banking client base. 

Discovery Bank began integrating other Discovery products into the app in late 2025, with Kallner describing the uptick in sales and leads as “instantaneous”. 

Discovery Health leads from the bank surged by 77% compared to the baseline prior to bank integration, with Life leads up 127%, and Insure leads rising by 98%. 

“We have seen that it has been instantaneous. People use the Discovery Bank app every day, which reflects the utility of the bank, but in our case, that is amplified by the other products and features,” Kallner said. 

“People are checking their active rewards, playing our game boards, and using their miles. We are getting high-frequency use in the bank.” 

The integration of Discovery’s other products into the top navigation bar on the banking app has resulted in increased engagement with these offerings in line with the banking app’s usage. 

“It has exceeded our expectations. We did not know what to expect, but it is feeding the entire business,” Kallner said.