Stand­ard Bank and major retailer Pep­kor, whose foot­print spans 6 000 stores, are explor­ing a pos­sible part­ner­ship that might see them launch an offens­ive in the per­sonal bank­ing industry and dethrone Cap­itec.

Busi­ness Day reports that the part­ner­ship talks are tak­ing place at the highest levels of the com­pan­ies, which together have more than 50m cus­tom­ers.

The explor­at­ory talks come less than a year after Pep­kor, owner of house­hold brands such as Ack­er­mans, was gran­ted a bank­ing licence by the SARB for a lender that is expec­ted to go to mar­ket next year, with a big focus on the mass mar­ket and the town­ship eco­nomy.

The parties intend to build the coun­try’s pree­m­in­ent retail bank, in which Stand­ard Bank might put to the fore its insur­ance, invest­ment and sav­ings cap­ab­il­it­ies, housed under Liberty, as a value-added pro­pos­i­tion for Pep­kor’s cus­tom­ers.

The part­ner­ship, if suc­cess­fully con­cluded, will also see the parties take to mar­ket a revamped rewards pro­gramme. Among the draw­cards for Stand­ard Bank are Pep­kor’s foot­print and low-cost busi­ness model, and the pro­posed part­ner­ship is more likely to pass the com­pet­i­tion hurdle than a full-blown mer­ger.

Busi­ness Day under­stands that the dis­cus­sions are advan­cing at pace, with a deal highly likely at this stage.

Stand­ard Bank declined to com­ment.

‘Stand­ard Bank does not com­ment on spec­u­la­tion. What we can affirm is our ongo­ing com­mit­ment to our cli­ents and to deliv­er­ing value across all seg­ments of the SA mar­ket,’ it said.

Pep­kor took a sim­ilar line.

‘Pep­kor does not com­ment on rumours or spec­u­la­tion. We can con­firm, however, that there is no such agree­ment or part­ner­ship with any bank,’ the group said.

Full Business Day report