Crypto News: Next Africa: Upending private banking

Welcome to Next Africa, a daily newsletter on where the continent stands now — and where it's headed. Sign up here to have it delivered to your email. In today's edition, we look at the shakeup in South Africa's private banking market. And:

The fighting in the Middle East continues unabated
African restrictions on metal exports sting Chinese investors
Namibia denies Elon Musk's Starlink an operating license

Banking the Henrys

South African lenders are upending private banking.

Once the preserve of the ultra-rich, services are now being made available to some graduates and those earning at least 750,000 rand — or roughly $44,000 — a year. Offers of lower-tier accounts and accompanying reward packages have effectively turned what was a bespoke service into a mass-market offering.

The prize is a market segment known as the Henrys — high earners, not yet rich — a pool that encompasses some 1 million potential customers.

Banks, already among the most profitable in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, are focusing on signing up private clients with high earning potential from early on in their careers. The business model is based on the premise that they will be able to offset thinner margins by forming lifelong relationships.

Technology and intensifying competition are accelerating the trend. New entrants to the market include billionaire Patrice Motsepe's GoTyme Bank, insurer Discovery and Bank Zero. Potential forays by the likes of Revolut, as well as retailers Pepkor and Shoprite threaten to intensify the scramble for customers.

The market isn't without risk.

Multiple lenders targeting the same demographic means they may be forced to cut prices or add services to attract and retain customers, raising costs. Meanwhile, private bankers who used to handle a few select clients are now responsible for several hundred, and some complain of burnout.

While South Africa's private banking model has traditionally generated most of their income by offering credit, lenders have now renewed a push to provide investment and wealth-management services.

That could go some way toward increasing access to financial-planning advice and bolstering the ranks of the middle and upper class.

The move should benefit banks and their customers alike and help reduce inequality in an economy that ranks as one of the most world's most inequitable more than three decades after the end of apartheid rule. — Prinesha Naidoo

Billboards for rival private banks line routes to Johannesburg's affluent suburbs and commercial districts. Photographer: Prinesha Naidoo/Bloomberg — Billboards for rival private banks alongside a road in Johannesburg.

What's Everyone Reading

Fighting between Iran and the US-Israeli alliance continued unabated, even as President Donald Trump claimed talks are under way to end the conflict. Iran launched missiles and drones at several Israeli cities and US bases in the Middle East overnight. In Iran, there were strikes on a gas pipeline and a pressure-regulation plant, the Fars news agency reported.

Iranian Red Crescent emergency workers clear rubble from a destroyed building in Tehran on March 23. — Iranian Red Crescent workers clear rubble from a destroyed building in Tehran yesterday.

African export restrictions on crucial battery metals are dealing a blow to Chinese companies that have spent billions of dollars developing mines on the continent. The Democratic Republic of Congo imposed cobalt export curbs in February last year to reduce a supply glut, while Zimbabwe last month banned shipments of lithium concentrates.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis is poised to win election as head of South Africa's second-biggest political party, with a little-known municipal councilor his only challenger for the post. Hill-Lewis and Sibusiso Dyonase were nominated to replace John Steenhuisen as leader of the Democratic Alliance, with the vote to be held at a conference in Johannesburg next month.

Geordin Hill-Lewis in Cape Town on Feb. 27. Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images — Hill-Lewis in Cape Town on Feb. 27.

Namibia turned down a bid by billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink to operate in the country, denying the satellite internet provider both a telecommunications service license and access to radio spectrum.

Circle Internet agreed its first African partnership with a unit of Nvidia-backed Cassava Technologies to enable customers to conduct transactions in the US company's stablecoin. Clients of Cassava's Sasai Fintech unit — which runs a money-transfer app across 30 countries — will be able to make domestic and cross-border payments using USD Coin.

Last Word

South African farmers are heading into the winter planting season with surging diesel prices and tightening supplies threatening wheat production. For Rossouw Dippenaar, who farms near Riebeek-West northeast of Cape Town, time is running out. He's secured less than a fifth of the diesel he needs to plant his wheat because some retailers are limiting purchases to prevent a run on their stocks. "I don't know what I will do if it doesn't change in the next two weeks," he said.