Pepkor has moved quickly to kill a story before it grew legs. On 30 July, Business Day reported that the retailer — owner of Pep and Ackermans — and Standard Bank were in exploratory talks “at the highest levels” to launch a personal bank and challenge Capitec, with a deal described as “highly likely at this stage.” Within hours, Pepkor told the market it was in no such talks with Standard Bank, or any other bank, about a tie-up or any strategic partnership.
A firm denial
In a statement to the stock exchange, Pepkor said there was “no information requiring disclosure” and cautioned shareholders “against placing reliance on the article.” Standard Bank, for its part, declined to comment on what it called speculation. Pepkor's message was that nothing had changed: it “remains focused on developing its banking offering” and will “continue to pursue the establishment of an independent bank within the required regulatory framework.”
Going it alone
The go-it-alone plan is already well advanced. Pepkor has received regulatory approval from the Prudential Authority to set up a bank and, by its own account, is “only one step away” from being registered as one. It submitted the necessary application in March 2026, bought a South African financial-services platform, CloudBadger Technologies, in late 2025, and hired Merwe Scholtz to lead the new banking initiative. The bank will be built on its +more loyalty programme, which has grown to 17 million members. Pepkor has earlier been linked with a partnership with Investec, but by March 2026 it was reported to be leaning towards launching its own lender instead.
The prize is the mass and township market that Capitec has come to dominate, and Pepkor's financial-services arm is already sizeable: revenue there jumped 41% to R3 billion in its latest half-year, lifting operating profit 63% to R691 million. It already runs a personal-loans arm, Capfin, whose credit book has grown to R5.3 billion, a smartphone-rental product with 2.4 million active accounts, and a cash-transaction platform, Flash, which it is merging with fintech Shop2Shop in a deal valuing the combined business at R21.3 billion. Its in-house bank, PlusB, is pencilled in for launch in 2027 — which means the real contest with Capitec is still a year or more away.
