{"id":618853,"date":"2025-11-18T16:39:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T14:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=618853"},"modified":"2025-11-19T07:26:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T05:26:36","slug":"new-beginning-for-bank-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/618853-new-beginning-for-bank-zero.html","title":{"rendered":"New beginning for Bank Zero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Competition Commission has recommended that Lesaka Technologies&#8217; acquisition of Bank Zero be approved by the Competition Tribunal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This comes after Bank Zero chairman and co-founder Michael Jordaan announced that Lesaka Technologies had offered R1.1 billion to buy the bank, pending regulatory approvals, in June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Commission has recommended that the Tribunal approve the proposed transaction whereby Lesaka intends to acquire Zero Research, without conditions,&#8221; it said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Commission is of the view that the proposed transaction is unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any market.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Competition Commission added that the proposed transaction doesn&#8217;t raise any significant public interest concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jordaan, a former FNB CEO, announced on Thursday, 26 June 2025, that Lesaka had acquired Bank Zero for R1.1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There are lots of regulatory approvals still needed, but both teams are excited about the merger synergies,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added that, upon the transaction&#8217;s completion, he will remain Bank Zero chairman, and the bank&#8217;s management team will remain intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He co-founded Bank Zero in January 2018, alongside banking innovator Yatin Narsai and five other founders. The digital bank is 45% black-owned and 20% female-owned.<\/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. Bank Zero shareholders will own approximately 12% of Lesaka&#8217;s shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jordaan will also join the Lesaka Board of Directors following the successful transaction, while Narsai will continue as the CEO of Bank Zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lesaka revealed its plans to integrate Bank Zero into its platform in September 2025. It said the move would consolidate its digital infrastructure into a single, scalable technology stack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will also add full banking capabilities to Lesaka&#8217;s fintech offering, while improving Lesaka&#8217;s value proposition and helping to accelerate Bank Zero&#8217;s organic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lesaka said the integration will broaden revenue opportunities, strengthen its balance sheet, and, ultimately, enable it to launch cross-border financial exchange products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lesaka believes 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>Lesaka said the acquisition will also augment and expand its product portfolio by enabling a cross-sell banking offering to merchants and providing alliance banking solutions for enterprise clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On its balance sheet optimisation, Lesaka expects financial growth through customer deposits, which will drive 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 help deleverage its gross debt by more than R1 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission has recommended that the Tribunal approve Lesaka&#8217;s acquisition of Bank Zero, without conditions.<\/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":[48295,3222,5960,84553,6204,48474],"class_list":["post-618853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bank-zero","tag-competition-commission","tag-competition-tribunal","tag-lesaka-technologies","tag-michael-jordaan","tag-yatin-narsai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618853"}],"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=618853"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618953,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618853\/revisions\/618953"}],"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=618853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}