Capitec ‘copycat’ coming for South Africa’s banking crown

Pepkor is coming after Capitec’s crown in South Africa’s personal banking space, and it is using the same playbook as the banking giant. 

The retailer is banking on the substantial amount of data it has on its customers, particularly those who use its existing credit products, to offer them simple and accessible banking products. 

This is the same idea that Capitec had when it took on South Africa’s banking establishment, and its obsession with what the client wants continues to this day. 

Capitec has leveraged its immense set of data on its clients to become the most valuable bank on the JSE with a market capitalisation of R545 billion. 

Pepkor is hoping to follow in Capitec’s footsteps in this regard when it launches its bank in April 2027. It is hoping to attract 1.8 million primary banking customers within five years. 

The retailer has one notable difference to Capitec and any other bank in the country – it has 6,500 stores in South Africa that it plans to use as branches. 

Pepkor’s plan to launch a bank in South Africa did not come as a bolt from the blue. The retailer has built up a significant financial services business alongside its traditional retail stores. 

The retailer handles 22 million cash-in and cash-out transactions and 4 million bill payments through its store counters. 

This business stands apart from Flash, which is a fintech giant that primarily operates in the informal and township economies. 

One of the company’s hidden gems is its FoneYam business, which provides financing for customers who want to purchase tech devices. 

This was all built before Pepkor announced it was establishing a commercial bank in November 2025 after it received regulatory approval. 

Under the name PlusB, Pepkor revealed that it had bought CloudBadger Technologies to build the banking platform and received Section 13(1) approval from the Prudential Authority (PA). 

In March 2026, Pepkor explained to investors how it would target the lower-income segment dominated by Capitec by using its network of 6,500 stores. 

The retailer has made rapid progress in building its bank, with it setting April 2027 as the launch date for PlusB. This is less than two years after it received approval from the PA. 

Copying Capitec’s playbook

Banking analyst Kokkie Kooyman explained that the launch of a bank from a retailer shows just how much things have changed in the sector. 

Historically, banking in South Africa has been dominated by the Big Four of Standard Bank, Absa, FirstRand, and Nedbank. 

While these four still dominate assets and lending in South Africa, Capitec has broken into the market and made the case for it becoming the Big Five. 

Other retail banks, such as Discovery Bank and GoTyme, have also garnered large customer bases and deposits, increasing competition in the sector. 

Kooyman told 702 that this shows it is becoming easier to build a bank and compete in the sector thanks to technology. 

Pepkor has already leveraged this in its retail business to launch unsecured lending, device financing, payment processing, and offer store credit. 

Kooyman said this reminds him of how Capitec became so successful. It focused relentlessly on its clients and collected as much data as possible to inform how it could serve them. 

“I see it, and I am sure they see it, as integrating its existing financial services into a single bank and offering transactional products, lending, and savings accounts,” Kooyman said. 

“Why Pepkor can do this as a retailer and make it successful is because it has a huge client base, retail space, and it has a lot of data.”

Kooyman explained that the world has changed from the time when other retailers tried launching banks. They could not leverage technology and data in the same way as Pepkor can now. 

“The world has changed with regard to computing power. You can get a lot of data on your clients and make the lending much less risky by analysing behaviour,” Kooyman said. 

“This lowers the barrier of entry for a company like Pepkor. This is fundamentally a learning from Capitec. Capitec is data-obsessed, and so will Pepkor be.” 

“Pepkor has looked at Capitec and said, ‘We can do this as well. We already have 32 million clients and all the data. We just need the banking software.’”

Kooyman said it is still not a simple process to build a bank from scratch, but Pepkor has significant advantages that make it more likely to succeed than previous retailers.