Discovery's bet pays off

SUCCESS: BANK DELIVERS RESULTS AND LAYS GROUNDWORK FOR RAPID EXPANSION

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Discovery's calculated decision to launch a bank in 2018 is beginning to pay off, properly.

The unit is currently profitable, having reported a profit in its second half (the six months between January and June).

It turned profitable last December.

Practically all metrics are tracking ahead of its original business case.

It aimed at breakeven in the 2025 fiscal, and achieved this - with an operating loss of just R68 million.

Going forward, it aims to grow the bank's operating profit by R400 million a year with an ambition of R3 billion in profit by FY2029.

The group is being modest with the former target.

Given the nature of scaling, that R400 million will quickly become R1 billion or even more in year two.

The group has started describing the bank as the "single interface" for its "South Africa composite", which means the single way to interact with its Health, Life, Invest (Bank) and Insure units.

New clients