The men who beat South Africa’s big banks with a suitcase PC and a bank-in-the-boot

Michiel le Roux, Jannie Mouton, and Riaan Stassen founded Capitec with the idea of challenging the norms of slow and labourious legacy banking, focusing on agility and innovation.

Launched in 2001, the venture was dismissed as a “fly-by-night” by many in the industry. It has since grown into South Africa’s largest bank by customers and continues to see substantial growth.

As of 2024, Capitec had over 22 million customers, just about double that of the second-largest bank by customers — Standard Bank. All three of the other major banks had fewer than 10 million customers.

At the time of publication, Capitec’s market capitalisation was R360 billion, making it more valuable than Absa and Nedbank combined.

It is close to surpassing Standard Bank’s R367 billion market cap and not too far off the country’s most valuable banking player — FNB parent FirstRand — worth R420 billion.

Le Roux could perhaps be considered the banking brain behind Capitec.

Born in 1949, Le Roux matriculated at Hoërskool Alberton in 1966 and studied a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws at Stellenbosch University.

He started his career at the Rupert-owned liquor company Distillers Corporation, where he would rise to the position of managing director.

Thereafter, he was recruited by another one of South Africa’s richest people — Christo Wiese — to serve as managing director of Boland Bank from 1994.

Le Roux left Boland Bank in 1998 due to a falling out over the bank’s future direction. He had to fight a costly legal battle with Wiese, who tried to stop him from departing.

One of the main early differentiators he drove at Capitec was longer branch operating hours.

“I thought banks closed at that time because of some kind of law, but it turned out that there was no law that stated that,” he said in an interview with 702.

However, although he wanted to improve accessibility, Le Roux acknowledged his original idea was to build a “boring” traditional bank for the poor.

The innovator

Stassen was Capitec’s big idea man, focused on making the bank a disruptor in the industry.

He became known for his unusual, down-to-earth leadership style. Intellidex (now Krutham) chairman Stuart Theobald described him as a “disarmingly approachable and casual” businessman.

Schooled at the prestigious Paul Roos Gymnasium, he also completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Stellenbosch University, after which he qualified as a chartered accountant.

His first big position was as an audit manager for Coopers & Lybrand. Like Le Roux, he would also join Distillers.

Le Roux also asked Stassen to join him at Boland Bank soon after being appointed as its managing director.

Two years after his departure, Le Roux received a call that Stassen and all of the senior management at Boland Bank wanted to leave and join him in his new venture.

Mouton, co-founder of PSG Group, was Capitec’s biggest financial backer from its early days.

Chris Otto, the other founder behind PSG, had been Le Roux’s first-year roommate at Stellenbosch residence Eendrag.

Mouton’s belief in the company was instrumental in getting the business off the ground.

Aside from cash, PSG also held the banking licence that Capitec needed to launch its offering.

Initially called Daxacom at its debut, the company was renamed Capitec Bank Holdings at its listing on the JSE in February 2002.

The name, a mix of “capital” and “technology,” reflected the bank’s goal of being on the cutting edge of the industry.

Le Roux served as the bank’s first CEO until 2004 before switching to board chairman from 2007 to 2016.

Stassen took over as CEO from 2004 to 2013 and played a massive role in fine-tuning the bank’s offerings for the digital era.

Taking face-to-face banking to the customer

Capitec’s four key values are accessibility, simplicity, affordability, and personalised service.

Testament to its out-of-step approach to banking were some of the early innovations it used to make itself more accessible while offering a personalised experience.

Stassen explained one issue with the big four that the bank wanted to address was their inability to deal with customers face-to-face.

In 2005, Capitec bought a Toyota Tazz and set up a mobile bank in its boot to do just that.

For an even more mobile solution, Capitec devised a purpose-built computer in a silver aluminium case. They called this approach to banking “Die Tas Man,” Afrikaans for “The Suitcase Man.”

By 2008, Capitec had grown its customer base to 2 million. In that same year, it added support for browser-based Internet banking, followed by cellphone banking in 2009.

In 2009, Capitec became the first bank in South Africa to offer biometric fingerprint verification in branches, using a 10-finger solution approved by the FBI.

Stassen stepped down from his position as Capitec CEO in December 2013. In 2016, he was appointed as non-executive board chairman, where he remained until he retired in 2019.

His successor as CEO, Gerrie Fourie, has taken the bank to several more milestones in more than a decade at the helm.

Fourie has led the bank through significant challenges — including the Viceroy Research scandal and Covid-19 pandemic.

Several other individuals who also played significant roles in Capitec’s formative years or later growth were André du Plessis, Carl Fischer, Christian van Schallkwyk, André Olivier, Chris Oosthuizen, and Henk Lourens.