South Africa’s banks are no longer competing only for deposits, loans and payments. Increasingly, they are battling over something less visible but more valuable: the digital infrastructure that powers customers’ everyday lives.
Over the past decade, lenders including FNB, Capitec, Standard Bank and Nedbank have quietly built mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) businesses. Absa is now preparing to join them, accelerating a shift that is reshaping what it means to be a bank in South Africa’s saturated financial market.
The expansion marks a significant shift in strategy. South Africa’s biggest banks increasingly see connectivity as a way to win a larger share of customers’ daily digital lives, using mobile services to acquire users, deepen engagement and create new revenue streams in a slowing banking market.
With South Africa’s MVNO market projected to more than triple from 4.4 million active SIMs in 2025 to 14.4 million by 2030, driven largely by banking MVNOs, the country’s experiment with ecosystem-led banking could offer an early blueprint for how banks across Africa deepen customer loyalty and grow beyond traditional financial services.
Originally published by TechCabal.