Pepkor secures approval for new South African bank, expands financial services footprint

PEPKOR, the JSE-listed discount retailer fast expanding into the financial services sector, has received approval from the Prudential Authority to establish a "fully fledged bank" in South Africa over "the next couple years", said the CFO Riaan Hanekom.

- EDWARD WEST

ACKERMANS is a mass value retailer owned by Pepkor Holdings. The group's other brands include PEP, Shoe City and Tekkie Town. But it is also growing fast into the financial services sector and is planning to establish a bank in South Africa.

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He said in an online presentation the group had been working on plans to form a bank for about two years, and an important step toward this was the acquisition of Cloudbadger in October 2023, a company that provides modern banking software platforms, and which he said represented a cost effective way for the group to obtain this technology.