MyWORLD to mark bank’s debut into new market
THE AFRICAN Bank is set to launch its new transactional bank account, MyWORLD, during the first half of 2019, marking its entry into the transactional banking market.
The bank said it had piloted MyWORLD successfully since April, with employees testing the African Bank App, which enables users to access all of the bank’s products, including savings and investments, personal loans, credit card and transactional banking in App or via the Web.
Chief executive Basani Maluleke said MyWORLD would compete strongly in the digital space and would be operated across African Bank’s Omni-channel digital infrastructure.
“We will initially target our existing base of just over a million loyal customers, but have no doubt that the ‘shared banking model’, our low fee structure and other great features will resonate with a much broader spectrum of South Africans,” Maluleke said.
African Bank is a 100 percent subsidiary of African Bank Holdings (ABH), an unlisted registered bank controlling company.
ABH shares are privately held by the SA Reserve Bank, the Government Employees Pension Fund, Absa Trading and Investments Solutions, Capitec Bank, FirstRand Bank, Investec Bank, Nedbank and Standard Bank.
Maluleke said the expected launch of MyWORLD, the increase of its retail deposits by more than 200 percent and the 21 percent growth in new credit disbursements would demonstrate the progress that the leadership had made in taking the bank from recovery towards becoming a serious competitor in the banking industry.
She said the bank was on its way to recovery after it was placed under curatorship in 2014. It had a cash balance of R8.2 billion in the year to end September.
The bank reported a 29 percent increase in operating profit to R1.45bn, up from R1.13bn and return on equity improved to 10.6 percent from 9 percent compared with last year. The bank said that was due to an increased contribution from the branch network and a steady contribution from insurance earnings. “A reduced credit impairment charge due to an improvement in credit quality as a result of regular and effective credit policy reviews was a significant factor in these results,” the group said.
The bank grew its new loan and credit card business by 21 percent to R9.66bn with the branch network contributing R9.04bn, direct sales channel contributing R484 million and the new web channel contributing R136m.