Investec has set itself a target that sounds straightforward but requires the bank to become something it has historically resisted being: accessible.
The bank wants to grow its South African private banking client base from 128,000 to approximately 250,000 by 2030. That means adding roughly 122,000 clients in four years, generating an additional R3 billion, or approximately 183 million, in operating profit in the process. The growth will not come from the ultra-wealthy segment where Investec already commands a 41 percent market share. It will come from the affluent market, South Africans earning between R800,000 and R1.5 million annually, or roughly 48,800 to 91,500 per year, a cohort of approximately 700,000 people of whom Investec currently serves only about 7 percent.
The strategy was outlined by Investec CEO Fani Titi and Itumeleng Merafe, head of Private Banking SA, at a media roundtable last week. It is less about inventing a new product than about reorganising how Investec uses the products it already has to reach a wider and slightly less wealthy audience than its traditional client base without diluting the brand positioning that has made it attractive to that base in the first place.
