Gerrie Fourie reflects on his time as Capitec CEO

Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie has spent over 11 years at the helm of the bank and has grown the finance house dramatically in that time. The customer base of 5 million when he took over as CEO in 2014, has grown to 24 million customers now.

The bank has branched out into life insurance, mortgage loans and is looking to grow its recently established business banking arm. And as the bank has grown, so too has the value it’s given to shareholders and other stakeholders.

Fourie has  credited the growth and success of the bank, which has gone beyond basic lending, to a single-minded determination to focus on delivering on the principles of accessibility, simplicity, service and affordability. He says investment in the bank’s people has been a key enabler. And while technology is a vital feature of their advancement, he says physical bank structures remain import for engaging with existing and potential customers.

“Technology 00 if you look at tech, it’s like a new car – every 5/6 years, you need to upgrade it or change it. I think data is critical, because you really need to understand your client and where you’re going and, for us, our business model is different to the banks – everyone believes that digital is the answer. We’ve got over 13 mil on our digital platform, but we believe that the client still wants that personal interaction and that’s why we’ve still got over 880 branches – we’re still going to open up another,”

Capitec is focusing on its newly established business banking division, looking to finance SMEs that have historically found it difficult to get financing due to traditional banks’ insistence on using existing assets as collateral.

“So, you score the individual on the cashflow that he generates, so you don’t rely on assets and then to provide credit from the perspective focusing on cashflow lending,” Fourie adds.

Asked about his controversial comments around SA being able to reach unemployment levels of 10%, Fourie said he stuck by his claim, and what needed to happen was greater investment in small businesses in the informal sector to help them grow and create jobs.

“I’m very passionate about South Africa. I want South Africa to grow, and I believe the only way to create the growth entrepreneurs are supported and looked after, so that they employ people. Look at Capitec – 25 years ago nobody worked for us, now we’ve got 17 000 and if I look at the informal market, I see a lot of entrepreneurs and we need to ask in South Africa, how do we grow those people, how do we support those people, what infrastructure do we give them – do we need all the red tape that there is currently, so that we’ve got entrepreneurs that will really go out there and appoint people,”

Market analyst, Martin Smith of Anchor Capital has described Capitec’s evolution as an incredible South African business story.

“It started out in the lending space and has grown into one of the biggest banks in the country, even in Africa, so I mean it’s been incredible story and evolution for everyone to see and they kind of go from strength to strength from an investment case – sometimes it’s been a bit difficult to buy at times because they’ve been quite expensive from a valuation perspective because they’ve always had the growth behind them, but from evolution perspective, it’s been a really good South African success story, so one for us to be proud of I guess,”

Fourie officially retires from Capitec on the day of its annual general meeting, on the 18th of July. He’ll hand over the baton to Graham Lee who’s been at the bank for 23 years, adding that he has every confidence that Lee is tooled to take Capitec to yet another level.

Video: Gerrie Fourie reflects on his time as Capitec CEO