From zero to 26 million in two and a half decades

Capitec has seen tremendous growth since its launch in 2001, with the bank now boasting 25.8 million active clients.

This makes Capitec South Africa’s largest bank by number of clients by far, with over half of the country’s adult population using its services.

Now, the bank is turning its focus toward ensuring that as many of these 25.8 million clients as possible become “fully banked”.

Capitec’s 2026 Annual Results, released on 22 April, revealed another standout performance for the banking giant.

The company reported headline earnings growth of 23% to R16.8 billion, and an impressive return on equity of 31%.

The results also revealed that Capitec’s active client base, which includes its card machine merchants, grew to 25.8 billion, up 7% from 2025.

Over the past five years, between 2022 and 2026, Capitec’s active client base has skyrocketed by 43%.

This strong client growth means Capitec is comfortably the largest bank in South Africa by clients, with the second-place position going to Standard Bank, which has an estimated 12 million clients locally.

Capitec’s achievement did not come easily, with the bank initially facing severe challenges when it first launched in 2001.

At the time, South Africa’s banking landscape was dominated by a handful of large players, meaning Capitec, then a tiny start-up targeting unbanked individuals, was up against giants.

It was not only considered near-impossible for a new challenger to take on these giants, but Capitec’s approach of targeting unbanked clients was also considered commercially unviable.

However, over time, this strategy started to pay off, with Capitec gaining traction in a market that had gone overlooked by the bigger banks for years.

From the start, Capitec’s strategy was underpinned by the same four fundamentals it uses today – affordability, accessibility, service, and simplicity.

Former CEO Gerrie Fourie has called it Capitec’s “winning formula”, attributing much of the bank’s success to its almost-obsessive focus on these four principles.

The proof of this strategy’s success can be seen in one number – 25.8 million clients – and the bank now hopes to use the same formula to convert as many of these customers into fully banked clients.

Becoming fully banked

While a fully banked client is difficult to define, it can normally be understood as customers who engage deeply with the bank’s ecosystem and, therefore, facilitate higher transaction volumes per client.

According to Capitec’s latest results, its fully banked client base grew by 12% in the 2026 financial year, representing just under 40% of its total active client base.

The results made it clear why Capitec is now honing in on this figure, as fully banked clients are by far the bank’s most valuable segment.

Despite accounting for only around 39% of the total active client base, fully banked clients contribute roughly three-quarters of the group’s income.

This is because these clients tend to interact more and more frequently with the bank’s offerings, thereby performing more transactions and contributing more to income.

In an interview following Capitec’s latest results, Lee told Daily Investor that the fully banked client figure is one the bank is looking at with greater intensity than its overall active client figure.

“We really want people to get real benefit from us and our services, and that’s most true of those fully banked clients,” he said. 

Lee explained that one challenge in this regard is that a fully banked client is difficult to define, yet it is necessary to motivate internal development.

He used the example of his own children, whose primary bank accounts are with Capitec and who are active users of the bank’s services, yet do not fall under the definition of “fully banked clients”. 

Another client figure Capitec reports in its results is active app clients, sometimes referred to as digital clients, which stood at 15.3 million in 2026, all of whom are also not necessarily included in the “fully banked” figure. 

“It is quite a hard measure, but it is one in which we can be certain that those clients are getting real value from us and that we’re getting real value from them,” Lee explained.

The graph below shows the growth in Capitec’s major client metrics over the past five years.