According to BusinessTech, Capitec’s share price has turned a R1,000 investment at its 18 February 2002 Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listing into about R3.86 million. The share price has risen by about 385,839% since the listing, which means the original R1,000 would now be worth almost 3,860 times as much after roughly 24 years. The calculation is based on the share price increase from the listing.
Capitec’s origins lie with its founding company, PSG, which acquired several micro-lending businesses, including Smartfin and Finai, in 1997. At the time the micro-lending industry was fragmented, with about 2,500 players, and PSG wanted to establish a stronger market position. Capitec was registered as a bank on 1 March 2001 and listed almost a year later. Its early years were hard, with strict regulation, significant capital requirements and competition from much larger banks, but it kept expanding by serving customers that traditional banks underserved. Its model rests on four principles: accessibility, simplicity, affordability and personalised service.
The business was far smaller and narrower when it listed. In its 2003 report, Capitec said all of that year’s profits came from loans, mostly small and short-term, and that it had granted 2.4 million loans with an average size of R618. By its 2026 interim results, 70% of operating income after credit impairments was non-interest income, including transaction fees, value-added services, insurance and telecommunications. The group processed 3.7 billion card and digital payments in six months, its insurance business earned R1.8 billion in funeral and life cover income, and Capitec Connect, its mobile virtual network operator, generated R284 million in net income.
Technology drove much of that change. Capitec introduced internet banking in 2008, cellphone banking in 2009 and its banking app in 2014, and it now has 16.5 million active app clients. Its customer base reached 26.6 million in 2026, business banking serves 545 000 business clients, and the latest results showed headline earnings of R9.5 billion for six months and a return on equity of 31%. Capitec says it wants to “be the bank for 95% of South Africans”.
The company is also entering a new phase as founding and long-serving executives retire. Former CEO Gerrie Fourie retired in July 2025, longtime board member Dr Chris Otto announced his retirement in 2026, and Henk Lourens, who joined the group at its inception, will retire at the end of November 2026 after 27 years. Capitec said Lourens “has made a lasting contribution to the growth of the group”.
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