Bank Zero, co-founded by former FNB chief executive Michael Jordaan, has been registered as a mutual bank and is expected to open to the public mid 2019.
Bank Zero integrated with the national payments system of the South African Reserve Bank in September.
Co-founder and executive director -Lezanne Human says: “Settling directly with the SA Reserve Bank, rather than through a ‘sponsoring bank’, enables us to participate directly with peer banks in the movement of money. We now have the ability to control our payments value chain, which forms a powerful foundation for innovative and cost-efficient offerings.”
The bank will be app-driven and is currently undergoing testing of its systems and processes.
“Building a bank is hard work; building an innovative bank is exponentially harder,” says Jordaan.
After the implementation of additional payment methods transactions by card, a second round of testing will begin in the first quarter of next year. Public operations are officially expected to begin in June 2019.
IOL