{"id":610599,"date":"2025-09-12T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T07:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=610599"},"modified":"2025-09-12T09:01:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T07:01:44","slug":"new-plans-for-bank-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/610599-new-plans-for-bank-zero.html","title":{"rendered":"New plans for Bank Zero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lesaka Technologies has revealed its plans to introduce Bank Zero to its platform after it acquired the digital bank for R1.1 billion in late June 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lesaka says the move will consolidate its digital infrastructure into one scalable technology stack and add full banking capabilities to its fintech offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will also help accelerate Bank Zero&#8217;s organic growth, while broadening and improving Lesaka&#8217;s value proposition for consumers and merchants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Lesaka, the integration will expand revenue opportunities, strengthen its balance sheet, and, subject to approval, enable it to launch financial exchange products to open cross-border opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lesaka says introducing Bank Zero to its platform will improve its existing value proposition, thanks to the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Consolidation to a modern and proprietary core banking platform for consumers;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The reduction of third-party dependencies;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Revised sponsorship banking fees; and,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Access to float revenue from a combined deposit base.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The move will also augment and expand Lesaka&#8217;s product portfolio by enabling a cross-sell banking offering to merchants and providing alliance banking solutions for enterprise customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regarding Lesaka&#8217;s balance sheet optimisation, it expects to observe financial growth in lending books through customer deposits, driving stronger lending economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also anticipates reducing the use of bank debt in its consumer and merchant divisions, which could assist in deleveraging Lesaka&#8217;s gross debt by more than R1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This would lead to &lt;1x Net Debt \/ Group Adjusted EBITDA, assuming successful consolidation,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lesaka highlighted that Bank Zero&#8217;s management team, comprising chair Michael Jordaan, CEO Yatin Narsai, Lin\u00e9 Wild, and L\u00e9zanne Human, hold extensive banking expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It should be noted that its acquisition of Bank Zero is pending regulatory approval from the Prudential Authority and the South African Reserve Bank, as well as other customary closing conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In late June 2025, Lesaka Technologies revealed that it had entered into an agreement to <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/600518-lesaka-buys-bank-zero-for-r1-1-billion.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/600518-lesaka-buys-bank-zero-for-r1-1-billion.html\">acquire 100%<\/a> of Bank Zero&#8217;s issued ordinary shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The acquisition consideration will be settled through a combination of newly issued shares and up to R91 million in cash. As a result, Bank Zero shareholders will own roughly 12% of Lesaka&#8217;s diluted shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Digital bank built from the ground up with a focus on efficiency<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Bank-Zero-new.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-582911\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Bank-Zero-new.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Bank-Zero-new-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Bank-Zero-new-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Jordaan, Narsai, Wild, Human, and three others co-founded Bank Zero seven years ago. It is 45% black-owned and 20% women-owned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bank was registered with the South African Reserve Bank in 2018 and launched in 2021. It offers low rates for personal and business banking customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bank Zero uses IBM Z mainframe computers and LinuxONE as a secure platform to protect against data breaches with IBM&#8217;s Secure Service Container. Since launch, the bank has recorded zero losses to fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t have physical bank branches and is fully digital, with all banking completed through its mobile app available on Android and iOS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bank Zero was built from the ground up with efficiency as a key priority, giving it the freedom to grow gradually without aggressive marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Its original focus was proving its unique problem-solving concept of a patented card immune to fraud and phishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bank Zero said the strategy had attracted a disproportionate number of businesses and high-income earners to its platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;These higher-value target segments provide healthy and steady growth,&#8221; Bank Zero said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another key target is the segment of digitally-savvy banking customers seeking fraud-immune and straightforward banking solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bank Zero recently reported that deposits, card purchases, and electronic payments were increasing consistently, with year-on-year growth of over 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re now tracking ahead of plan with expected break-even by 2027. Our challenge is to try and get there much sooner,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lesaka says introducing Bank Zero to its platform will provide various benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"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_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10106],"tags":[48295,24410,96862,84553],"class_list":["post-610599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bank-zero","tag-digital-banking","tag-lesaka","tag-lesaka-technologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610599"}],"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\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610599"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610725,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610599\/revisions\/610725"}],"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=610599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}