Asief Mohamed, Chief Investment Officer at Aeon Investment Management, was asked to comment by journalist Kabelo Khumalo on the banking license Discovery was recently granted by the Registrar of Banks.
Discovery inched a step closer to running a fully fledged retail bank on Monday after the Registrar of Banks granted the group a banking licence.
The Competition Commission and the yet-to-be-disclosed ownership structure are the only hurdles facing the mooted bank. Discovery said in a statement that it was assessing the regulatory conditions attached to the licence.
“The grant of the banking licence is subject to specific regulatory conditions, including conditions relating to the proposed shareholding in the bank and Competition Commission approval. In addition, certain other regulatory approvals are still required to complete the transactions proposed.” The country’s big banks, including Standard Bank, Nedbank and FirstRand, have not had stiff competition since Capitec entered the market more than a decade ago.