{"id":607703,"date":"2025-08-21T08:58:42","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T06:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=607703"},"modified":"2025-08-21T09:10:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T07:10:14","slug":"bank-zero-offline-after-maintenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/607703-bank-zero-offline-after-maintenance.html","title":{"rendered":"Bank Zero hit by downtime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bank Zero experienced an outage on Thursday, with South Africa\u2019s youngest digital bank notifying customers that its system was unavailable after maintenance took longer than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are all hands on deck to come back up as soon as possible,\u201d Bank Zero said in a post on Twitter\/X. \u201cWe will post here as soon as it is fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outage tracking website Downdetector shows that customers began reporting problems accessing the bank\u2019s systems around 07:00 on Thursday, 21 August 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attempting to log into Bank Zero\u2019s online platform yielded a Not Found error: \u201cFailed to login try again later! Requested resource\/service could not be found.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for the bank told MyBroadband that their app was back online at just after 09:00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bank Zero was founded seven years ago by Michael Jordaan, banking innovator Yatin Narsai, and five other co-founders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mutual bank, registered with the South African Reserve Bank in 2018 and launched in 2021, offers low fees for personal and business banking, with most transactions free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bank Zero uses IBM Z mainframe computers and LinuxONE as a secure platform that can protect against data breaches with IBM\u2019s Secure Service Container.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has no physical bank branches and operates as a fully digital bank through its mobile app, available on both Android and iPhone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its initial focus was proving its unique problem-solving concept of a patented card immune to fraud and phishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank said that this strategy had attracted a disproportionate number of businesses and high-income earners to its services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese higher-value target segments provide healthy and steady growth,\u201d Bank Zero said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several major banks had also launched low-cost accounts with digital-only sign-ups to compete for affordability-focused customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Bank Zero did not achieve the same growth as competitors like Discovery Bank and TymeBank, it has a different business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bank Zero was built from the ground up with efficiency in mind, which gave it the freedom to grow gradually without the need for aggressive marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another key segment has been digitally savvy customers seeking fraud-resistant yet straightforward solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank reported that deposits, card purchases, and electronic fund transfers are increasing continuously, with year-on-year growth exceeding 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bank Zero has recorded deposits of roughly R400 million. For the year ending December 2024, card spending totalled R415 million across its customer base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re now tracking ahead of plan with expected break-even by 2027. Our challenge is to try and get there much sooner,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesaka Technologies announced in June 2025 that it had acquired Bank Zero for just under R1.1 billion, pending regulatory approvals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bank Zero is experiencing an outage, with the digital bank informing customers that its system was unavailable after maintenance took longer than expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":428156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10106],"tags":[48295,70405,24410],"class_list":["post-607703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bank-zero","tag-banking-outage","tag-digital-banking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607711,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607703\/revisions\/607711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}