Sipho Dlamini

Capitec CIR at 38.4% vs Big-4 average 54.1% — a 15.7pt structural gap that widened again this half. Digital-native cost base is now compounding, not converging. Read-through: Big-4 need branch rationalisation, not another app refresh.

Standard Bank FY26 print: transactional NIR +14.2% YoY, NII only +6.1%. Fee income now 41% of total revenue vs 34% three years ago. The mix shift is the story — not the headline HEPS.

SA digital banking adoption flattening at 78% penetration in LSM 8-10 but still climbing 4pts/yr in LSM 4-6. Next 3m new-to-bank customers come from the bottom two-thirds of the pyramid. Product design has to follow.

TymeBank crossed 10.4m customers at a reported CAC of ~R120 vs Big-4 blended ~R1,850. That's not a marketing gap — it's a distribution model gap. The kiosk network is the moat, not the app.

Nedgroup's transactional NIR quietly grew 11% YoY while the market focused on impairments. Fee mix now 29% of revenue, highest in five years. The re-rating case is transactional, not credit.

FNB held #1 in SA banking app rankings for the 8th consecutive quarter — but Capitec's NPS closed the gap from 22pts to 9pts in 18 months. League tables lag sentiment by two cycles.

Discovery Bank book still <2% of SA retail deposits, but the behavioural pricing engine is being reverse-engineered inside two of the Big-4. Watch pricing announcements in H2 — the copy cycle is starting.

SA prime-repo spread at 3.5% is doing more work than credit desks are pricing. Every 25bps of repo cuts compresses NIM ~8bps across the Big-4. Q3 impairment guidance will read differently in that light.

African Bank's unsecured book growing 18% YoY into a rate-cutting cycle — historically the exact vintage that turns. The IPO window closes if H1 27 impairments print above 6.5%.

SA fintech funding down 34% YoY but median cheque size up 41%. Consolidation phase is here. The names that raise in the next two quarters are the ones that survive to profitability.