African Bank posts steady operational gains as diversification strategy enters next phase

Stephen Grootes interviews African Bank Group CEO Kennedy Bungane about the Bank’s 2025 annual financial results, highlighting its transformation into a diversified, customer-centric institution and its strong performance despite a challenging environment.

Listen to the interview in the audio player below.

African Bank reported solid results for the year to end, September 2025 as its multiyear diversification strategy continued to reshape the business into a full-service financial institution.

The bank’s “Excelerate25” strategy has broadened its offering across Personal and Business & Commercial Banking, shifting from a monoline lender in 2021 to a diversified player serving 6.3 million customers.

Five years ago, African Bank only had 1.2 million customers.

While earnings came in below expectations, the bank said the result reflected heavy investment in new systems, integration of acquired businesses and the build-out of its target operating model.

Net income from operations before impairments edged up to R7.6 billion (FY24: R7.5 billion), while total income before expenses rose 5% to R5.2 billion. Credit impairments fell 6% to R2.44 billion, driving an improvement in the credit loss ratio to 5.3% from 6.3%.

Non-interest revenue surged 39% to R2.1 billion, lifted by higher transactional use of the MyWORLD and credit-card accounts, along with partnership-driven fee income. Insurance income declined to R582 million due to softer personal-banking advances, though lower claims helped offset the impact.

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Kennedy Bungane, Group CEO of African Bank says the numbers reflect a growth better than they had forecast.

"We are ahead of plan with some respect to some significant deliverables. We thought we'd be at around 5 million customers at this time, and that was a revised number from 3.5 million. So at 6.3 million, this is better than planned," says Bungane.

"The pivot in these numbers is how the plan to move from just being a monoline retail lender. An unsecured lender which is what we were for almost two-and-a-half decades, into being a fully-fledged bank. It is taking shape and is coming through very nicely," adds Bungane.

He adds that the bank remains committed to navigating economic shifts, strengthening governance and delivering on its ambition to build a sustainable, digitally led financial institution.

Scroll to the top of the article to listen to the full interview.