BANKING

Earmarked to open in 2024, the South African Reserve Bank has given Old Mutual approval to apply for a banking licence. “We are working on our application under Section 16 of the Banks Act for the registration of the bank,” the group’s directors said in a trading update on Tuesday. Old Mutual has existing banking products, which consist of its Money Account and an unsecured lending product. The current transactional solution is delivered through a commercial arrangement with a thirdparty bank. “While this commercial arrangement has allowed us to gain experience in transactional banking services,we needed to reassess our future arrangements to deliver on our customer needs,” Old Mutual said. The cost of building the transactional capability is estimated to be R1.75bn.