The immediate departure of African Bank’s chief executive, Kennedy Bungane, who has been replaced by seasoned banker Zweli Manyathi, is seeing the top job develop a reputation of being a poisoned chalice.
Bungane, a seasoned banker who is Standard Bank’s former chief executive of Corporate and Investment Bank for South Africa, left African Bank abruptly after joining the company in 2021.
Bungane replaced Basani Maluleke, whose then sudden departure was rumoured to be linked to clashes against the bank’s chairman, Thabo Dloti.
Bank’s strong performance
African Bank Group is owned by SA Reserve Bank (45%), Gauteng Employees Pension Fund (22.5%), ikamva lethu (10%) while First Rand, Standard Bank, Absa, Nedbank and Investec and Capitec are the remaining shareholders of the bank that has seen its total staff complement rise to 4,131 in 2025 from 3,384 when Bungane joined in 2021.
The customer base increased to 6.33 million from 1.29 million over the same period.
The progress saw African Bank ringing the tills, generating a net profit of R534-million in 2021, R736-million in 2022, R521-million in 2023, R517-million in 2024 and R274-million in 2025.
Fallout with chairman
According to Business Day, Bungane fell out with the Dloti-led board due to errors in the group’s regulatory reporting regime and poor first-quarter performance.
The appointment of Manyathi, who is over 60 years old, was subject to obtaining the requisite regulatory approvals, to lead the diversified African Bank through this next consolidation phase, said the company in a statement shared on Johannesburg Stock Exchange News Services announcement.
“Zweli, an industry veteran, was appointed to the board of African Bank on 22 September 2022 and has served as the chief executive of business and commercial banking of African Bank and has worked alongside Kennedy and the members of the group executive committee for the last four years.”
Manyathi brings experience
The company said Manyathi was a highly regarded banking executive with extensive leadership experience in the banking sector in South Africa. He was CEO of Business and Commercial at Standard Bank, where he oversaw strategic direction and contributed to financial service delivery. Manyathi, whose African Bank remuneration package for 2025 was over R28-million, has previously held numerous executive and senior positions at FNB.
The lender said Bungane, whose last year’s total remuneration package amounted to over R36-million, stepped down as the GCEO and as an executive director of African
Bank and African Bank Holdings Limited boards of directors, effective March 6 2026.
“Consequentially, Kennedy resigns his memberships of the social, ethics and transformation and the special projects and large exposures board committees,” said the company in a statement.
