Whose lunch is Discovery Bank eating?

The Executive Exchange opens with a conversation that feels both timely and quietly restorative.

Hosted by seasoned journalist Bronwyn Nielsen on MoneywebTV, the inaugural episode sits at the intersection of uncertainty and ambition, tracing the extraordinary journey of Discovery Bank’s launch as a full-service, branchless digital bank just as Covid reshaped how South Africans lived, worked and thought about money.

At its heart is a simple but powerful idea: that financial health is inseparable from human health.

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In conversation with Discovery CEO Hylton Kallner, the episode explores how the bank was designed to personalise every aspect of service, using data responsibly to help people make better financial choices while respecting privacy and trust.

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We ask whose lunch Discovery Bank is really eating in an increasingly crowded market, and how it is responding to a new generation of competitors where fintechs and retailers are joining forces.

Kallner reflects candidly on building great businesses in tough times, the real health of the South African consumer, and his own leadership journey – describing himself not as a natural manager, but as an actuary shaped by three decades inside a founder-manager culture.

The conversation looks ahead too, to bold ambitions of reaching two million clients and R3?billion in profit by 2029.

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