a nearly R1-billion loss in the year ended June 2022, though parent Discovery Group said costs are coming down and the bank remains on track to achieve its targets.
The normalised loss came to R990-million, a 10% reduction from the R1.1-billion loss of a year ago due to reduced spending by Discovery on the digital bank. “The group is emerging from a cycle of intense organic investment into new initiatives, dominated by the investment in Discovery Bank, which has seen excellent, high-quality growth over the period,” it said.The number of active accounts topped a million, from 649 000 before, representing a “significant milestone for the bank”.“The bank has also continued to attract high-quality clients, resulting in high levels of average non-interest revenue and a low credit loss ratio of 1.56%,” it said.
Discovery Bank performed exceptionally well in the last year and is running well ahead of plan. We grew our client base to over one million accounts, our retail deposit grew by 30%, and we’re on track for breakeven in 2024. We’re just getting started.