The Patrice Motsepe-owned TymeBank is banking on the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) Moria Easter weekend pilgrimage to grow its client book.
For the first time since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of ZCC members have travelled to the church’s headquarters in Moria, outside Polokwane, for the annual Easter pilgrimage.
And the bank, which entered into a partnership with the ZCC in 2020 with mutual expectations of offering competitive and low-cost banking products to church members, is seeing the high turnout as an opportunity to convert more of the church’s members into its clients.
The bank is offering the ZCM (Zion City Moria) card, which works as both the official church membership card and a bank debit card exclusively for ZCC church members.
The ZCM membership card also offers ZCC members best-in-market transactional banking fees and up to 10% in interest on savings balances.
TymeBank chief commercial officer Cheslyn Jacobs told Sunday World in an interview this week that with the church now fully reopened, this year will be the first year that the bank is hosting activations for the Easter period at the church’s Moria headquarters, and the bank is anticipating a great uptake of the ZCM TymeBank products and services.
The bank successfully completed the pilot phase of the membership card and to date has nearly 400 000 church members as customers.
Jacobs explained that Covid-19 had affected the bank’s ZCC membership growth plans.
“As TymeBank, we believe the ZCM proposition remains a very attractive offering for ZCC members.
“The convenience of on-boarding in their community by their fellow members, as well as the empowerment of simple and transparent products, and the direct financial benefits of the low transactional fees and high savings rates speak to the needs of the ZCC member base.
“Having now moved well past the disruptions of the pandemic, we look forward to presenting this unique offering to a wider membership base.”
Jacobs said they have about 100 church sites equipped with TymeBank’s ZCM-branded kiosks to allow customers to sign up at their places of worship in major centres and in smaller rural villages across the country.
The ZCM-branded kiosks are manned by trained agents from Zetnet Mobile, a mobile and digital services company owned by the church.
“Given the vast ZCC membership base, TymeBank has made special infrastructural arrangements to on-board and service as many ZCC members as possible, including the rollout of roaming kiosks at more church sites across five of the provinces,” said Jacobs.
Zetnet Mobile chief executive Shafick Jardine said: “This partnership aims to bring practical and cost-effective banking to a widely unbanked base, while aggressively reducing the digital divide and enhancing the livelihoods of church members through technology.”
TymeBank, which is Africa’s first digital bank to reach profitability, recently saw its customers grow to 11-million. The financial institution is regarded as the fastest-growing bank in South Africa based on 2024 customer deposits.
The bank is owned by a holding company Tyme Group, which is headquartered in Singapore and serves as the holding company for the launch of multi-country banks.
TymeBank’s majority shareholder is Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital (ARC), and investors include Nubank, The Ethos AI Fund, Apis Growth Fund II, Tencent, The Gokongwei Group, British International Investment, Norrsken 22, Blue Earth and Lavender Hill Capital Partners.
As the majority shareholder in TymeBank, Motsepe’s ARC played a pivotal role in initiating and launching the ZCC partnership.
TymeBank’s lending portfolio has seen significant growth. By October 2024, the bank had disbursed over $600-million (about R12-billion) to more than 80 000 small businesses across the country through its Merchant Cash Advance product.
Jacobs stated that the bank’s big focus for the next 12 to 18 months was to enhance its customer service and experience.
“New products in the pipeline include credit card offerings and expanded lending capabilities. In this regard TymeBank will benefit from Nubank’s deep experience (they have 110-million customers in South America, primarily Brazil).
“There are no immediate plans to introduce home loans or vehicle finance,” he said.
