TymeBank boosts business banking

Small business owners will benefit from access to turnover-based finance provided by SME funder Retail Capital, along with new offerings like a mobile POS app and a financial community platform, as TymeBank bolsters business banking offering.

South Africa’s fastest growing digital bank made the announcements this week, but advuised that the proposed acquisition of Retail Capital, an award-winning fintech company that provides funding to small and medium-sized businesses, is subject to regulatory approvals.

Once approved, it will become a division of TymeBank and the foundation of the bank’s expanded business banking offering.

“This acquisition will enable TymeBank to expand its offering to entrepreneurs to include working capital finance,” says said TymeBank CEO, Coen Jonker. “Retail Capital has acquired significant risk management experience over the past decade and through different economic cycles. They have an experienced team in place and their risk models and operational processes have been battle-tested and optimised to a significant degree for small-business funding.

“Together, we look forward to providing access to innovative solutions to ensure business owners can fuel their growth, drive job creation and contribute to the broader economy,” 

TymeBank’s current Business Banking offering, which has over 100,000 customers, includes a transactional business account that can be opened in under five minutes, zero monthly bank fees, free debit card and online purchase transactions and free bulk payments, among other benefits.

Retail Capital lowers the barriers to funding for SMEs through an easy, three-step online application process. In the last 10 years Retail Capital has provided more than 43,000 business owners in South Africa with over R5.5-billion in working capital, making it the largest SME funder of its kind in the sector.  

Says Retail Capital CEO Karl Westvig: “Retail Capital has a long history of supporting SMEs by enabling them to access affordable funding that helps their businesses grow. Now, through this acquisition by TymeBank, we will be able to scale the offering, giving SMEs the opportunity to expand through funding that works on their terms.

“Retail Capital already powers many industry-leading partners in the Acquiring, Retail and Payments space to support their SME customers and the tie-up with TymeBank will further enhance this offering to our partners’ customers.”

Tyme Group, through its multi-country digital banking presence, will also enable Retail Capital’s international expansion into other markets.

Other new products

Business customers will have access to a new offering called TymePOS, a mobile point-of-sale app that turns an NFC-enabled cellphone into a tap-and-go payment device. As a softpos solution, says the bank, TymePOS offers the best pricing in the market for merchants of this size. It also has market-leading next-day settlements for merchants (the industry standard is seven days). The app is available for download on the Google Play Store, and it will take a TymeBank Business Banking customer two minutes for app onboarding. Customers will then receive a merchant ID to start processing card payments within 24 hours. 

TymeTrybe, a financial community platform, is aimed at equipping business owners with a comprehensive range of business tools, accredited courses and other educational services, as well as access to networking opportunities. The TymeTrybe platform was designed by Tribe Fintech, a global fintech company and Tyme partner that has secured partnerships with several high-profile organisations as contributors to the platform, including global tech giant Meta, Wits Business School, BrownSense and SMEasy.