Capitec processed payments of R25.4bn on the Black Friday weekend, with its data showing Shoprite, Takealot and Shein cashed in as consumers hunted for “cheap” deals.
The data from Capitec, with 23-million clients and the country’s largest bank, showed consumers splashed out on groceries and clothing. Nearly R2bn was spent at major grocery retailers, with Shoprite accounting for the lion’s share of the spending while Clicks accounted for most spending in the pharmacy space.
Naspers’ Takealot dominated the online retail space with more than 52,000 orders, while Chinese e-commerce giant Shein also made a strong showing with nearly 14,000 transactions.
Francois Viviers, Capitec group executive for marketing and customer experience, said the lender fielded about 500 transactions per second on Black Friday and close to 600 transactions on Saturday morning.
Our transaction data points to South Africans’ Black Friday shopping extending over the weekend, not only Friday. There’s also a clear trend of more South Africans shifting from cash to card and from in-store to online shopping. We see a growing focus on shopping for essentials rather than luxury items
— Francois Viviers, Capitec group executive for marketing and customer experience
“Our transaction data points to South Africans’ Black Friday shopping extending over the weekend, not only Friday. There’s also a clear trend of more South Africans shifting from cash to card and from in-store to online shopping. We see a growing focus on shopping for essentials rather than luxury items,” said Viviers.
“Considering our client base covers a third of our country’s population, this behaviour reflects a broader national trend of wiser and more strategic financial decisions.”
Collecting and interpreting data has been key for Capitec as it takes new products to market to meet consumers’ evolving behaviour.
The lender has a team of more than 500 people processing data, giving it insights that help it take new products to market as the group ramps up its long-term strategy to diversify income streams.
The Stellenbosch-based bank has accumulated almost 2-trillion data points it uses to create value beyond banking through its three businesses — retail banking, business banking and insurance — as it implements its strategic initiatives.
The lender has spent about R6.3bn invested over the past three years replatforming its IT systems for stability, agility and scale and systems to Amazon Web Services cloud-developed innovative payment solutions.
Viviers said the Capitec app processed about 1.7-million transactions over the Black Friday weekend.
Capitec clients spent nearly R100m at fast food outlets and R284m on platforms such as Hollywoodbets and Woolworth’s Bash food delivery business.
Revenue streams
Led by Gerrie Fourie, Capitec has evolved and broadened its revenue streams by increasing its products and has balanced its mix of lending and transactional income by also targeting high-income earners.
The bank has also made a foray in the competitive business banking arena. In 2019 it bought Mercantile Bank in a deal worth R3.5bn, shrugging off competition from Nedbank and a consortium of the Public Investment Corporation and Bayport Financial Services. It has since rebranded Mercantile to Capitec Business and is looking at expanding its international business.
In March, the SA Reserve Bank approved a transaction in which Capitec will increase its shareholding in international online consumer lending group Avafin to 97.69% from 40.66% at a purchase price of €26.3m (R501m). Avafin provides online consumer loan products in Poland, Latvia, Spain, the Czech Republic and Mexico.
The lender is also boxing in the life insurance space. Launched in June, its life cover book has more than 40,000 clients.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.