{"id":90780,"date":"2025-10-02T07:58:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T07:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=90780"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:37:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:37:06","slug":"this-week-in-charts-26-september-2025-banks-western-capes-wind-boom-and-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/10\/02\/this-week-in-charts-26-september-2025-banks-western-capes-wind-boom-and-rail\/","title":{"rendered":"This week in charts: 26 September 2025 (Banks, Western Cape\u2019s wind boom and rail)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\ud83c\udfe6 Banks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

South Africa is dominated by five major banks: Absa, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s where your salary lands or where you swipe your card, these five banks dominate South Africans\u2019 financial lives. But they differ sharply in how they serve and employ the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec has the largest customer base at 24-million people. It also has the largest physical footprint with 880 branches and 8,798 ATMs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite its huge client base, Capitec employs the fewest number of people of South Africa\u2019s major banks at 16,935.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, FirstRand, which owns FNB, is South Africa\u2019s biggest domestic banking employer (40,194), though Standard Bank employs more people overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Standard Bank operates in 26 countries and has 19.6-million customers. Of that number, almost two-thirds (12.4-million) are in South Africa. The bank with the smallest customer base is Nedbank at 7.6-million people, but just because it has the smallest customer base does not mean it has the lowest physical footprint. Nedbank has 623 branches and 4,297 ATMs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of these banks, Standard Bank recorded the largest revenue at R181.7-billion, followed by FirstRand at R135.7-billion and Absa at R109.9-billion. Capitec brought in the least at R35.8-billion. But it\u2019s also the youngest of the established banks, having launched in 2001 compared to FNB\u2019s 1838 origins and Standard Bank\u2019s 1862 founding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udcf1 Buying data<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Cellphone data or airtime payments are the most common purchases South Africans make through banking apps, according to the latest South African Reserve Bank Payments Study<\/a>, based on two 2023 surveys of 7,000 people. These small but frequent payments were an average of R136.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report noted that while this might seem like a \u201cbasic\u201d use of a sophisticated tool, \u201cbanking apps are a convenient way to top up on data or airtime\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sending money to family or charities was the second most common use (25%), with an average transaction value of R830.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banking apps weren\u2019t commonly used to pay for groceries or restaurant bills. But people did use them to make larger monthly payments for rates, taxes, levies and rent (11%). These payments averaged at R2,080.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business payments, primarily made by self-employed individuals, were among the least common (2%), but had the largest average payment at R5,474.<\/p>\n\n\n\n