The men who grew Capitec from 25,000 to 22 million clients

Since its first year in operation, Capitec has grown from roughly 25,000 to 22 million customers, and three of its initial stakeholders — André du Plessis, Henk Lourens, and Gerrie Fourie — are largely to credit for its success.

Capitec was founded by Michiel le Roux and Riaan Stassen in March 2001, and it has grown to be the largest consumer bank in South Africa in terms of customer numbers.

It was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in February 2002, and its shares have grown from R0.55 per share to R2,778.44 per share over that period. It has a market cap of R323 billion.

Since it was founded, Capitec has won several accolades, including being named the best bank in South Africa in the Forbes World’s Best Bank Survey in 2019 and 2020.

It was also recognised as the third-strongest banking brand globally in the Brand Finance Banking 500 Report 2020 and 2021.

Staasen and Le Roux have since left the company. However, Le Roux still holds roughly 11% of Capitec’s shares.

However, Du Plessis, Fourie, and Lourens remained with the company and have seen it through significant growth.

André Du Plessis served as chief financial officer (CFO) at Capitec from 2002 to 2022, when he retired.

During his time as CFO, the company’s market cap grew from R78 million to R323 billion. Its footprint also more than doubled from 315 branches in 2002 to 886 in 2024.

Its workforce has grown from 1,127 staff to more than 15,400.

Before taking the CFO role, Du Plessis was a member of Capitec’s executive financial management from 2000 to 2002.

He served as chief executive of financial management at Boland PKS and NBS Boland Group from 1996 to 2000 and was a partner at Arthur Andersen for ten years before that.

Du Plessis holds a bachelor of commerce honours degree in accounting and finance from the Rand Afrikaans University and is a qualified chartered accountant.

He retired in June 2022 after 22 years of helping build Capitec.

Henk Lourens served as head of Capitec’s acquisitions department when it was founded and then transitioned to operations manager responsible for the Northern Cape, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal in 2001.

He held this position until 2007 when he became the national sales manager, after which he became the executive of retail banking at Capitec.

Lourens currently serves as executive of strategic initiatives, a role he acquired following a restructure of Capitec’s executive committee.

He is in charge of value-added services, business solutions, Live Better, and the company’s mobile virtual network operator, Capitec Connect.

Like Du Plessis, Lourens has a bachelor of commerce honours and is a qualified chartered accountant.

Capitec’s current CEO, Gerrie Fourie, has held the position since 2014, following Stassen’s departure in 2013.

Speaking about the bank’s strong performance, as reported in its latest annual financial results, Gerrie said Capitec’s digital evolution allowed it to unlock more value for its customer base.

“Our strategy has remained razor-focused on the future,” said Fourie.

“Over the last three years, we’ve invested R6.3 billion in re-platforming our systems and migrating our data to AWS Cloud services, developing innovative payment solutions, and building three new businesses to unlock value for our 22 million clients.”

“This cemented our position as the country’s top digital bank and produced strong results in a challenging economic environment,” he added.

Fourie serves on the Mastercard Middle East and Africa advisory board and the board of Avafin. In 2019, he was named Business Leader of the Year at the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies Awards.

Prior to taking on the top job at the bank, Fourie was head of operations at Capitec since its inception.

He started his career in the financial department at Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery in 1987, before being appointed as the area general manager of KwaZulu-Natal and, later, Gauteng.