Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner Discovery Bank is cementing its place as a serious digital challenger in the South African market. In its full-year results released published last week, for the period ending 30 June 2025, the bank reported positive customer growth numbers, even breaking even for the first time. In this in-depth interview, Discovery…
Rapid changes in the payments landscape across Africa are challenging traditional banks, which are being forced to adapt quickly to new modes of facilitating transactions such as mobile money and cryptocurrencies. This is according to the Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) Payments in Africa white paper released last week, which found that increased…
Banking group Absa and cloud services giant Amazon Web Services have announced an expansion of their commercial relationship that will see AWS become Absa’s “preferred cloud partner”. According to a statement on Monday, the partnership is aimed at delivering more agile, secure and customer-focused financial services. “This partnership reflects our ambition to be a digitally…
Digital fraud is on the rise in South Africa, with the number of incidents reported by the banking sector in the 2024 calendar nearly doubling year on year. The rate of successful incidents is just as endemic, growing by more than two-thirds over the same period. This is according to the South African Banking Risk…
FNB and Capitec will offer smart IDs through apps. (Image by Nicola Mawson) The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is partnering with banks to enable citizens to apply for smart IDs and passports via banking applications, as part of an effort to address fraud linked to the old green ID books. Capitec and First National…
Skyscrapers on the skyline from the offices of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Next week, the CNBC teams are back on the road – and it’s all about the banks and the ECB. From Frankfurt to Milan, and Paris to London, the…
Q-KON, a leading provider of satellite communication solutions, recently shared the significant success and proven efficacy of its Twoobii-LEO satellite services, powered by Eutelsat OneWeb, in revolutionising connectivity for the financial services industry in South Africa. This innovative low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite technology is transforming how South African banks ensure secure, high-speed and reliable communication…
Sergio Barbosa, CEO of FutureBank. Sergio Barbosa, CEO of fintech firm FutureBank, says traditional, rule-based and rigid automated technology is giving way to agentic AI to enable intelligent, adaptive and customer-centric banking. Agentic AI represents the future of financial services, adds Barbosa. “Traditional automation relies on fixed rules, which limits adaptability and intelligence. Agentic AI,…
