Coen Jonker, Co-Founder of Africa’s Tyme — Fintech for Economic Inclusion & Importance of Persistence
Miguel Armaza sits down with Coen Jonker, Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Tyme, a digital banking business operating in South Africa and the Philippines. Tyme’s flagship project is TymeBank in South Africa, which was launched in February 2019 and has since grown to over three million customers in just over two years. An incredible growth!
In this episode, you will hear:
- Coen’s background and why he’s always been interested in the transformative potential of business for economic inclusion
- The TymeBank story and why Coen and his co-founders decided to launch banking solutions for the unbanked in South Africa
- Decision behind launching a hybrid banking model, integrating the digital bank into retail environments
- Scaling to 3 million clients in 2+ years
- Stories from a tough fundraising journey and how their largest shareholder come to be a group of ordinary citizens and community groups in South Africa
- International expansion to Southeast Asia
- Entrepreneurial lessons for founders in emerging markets
- And a lot more!
Coen Jonker
Coen Jonker is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Tyme, a digital banking business operating in Africa and Asia. Tyme’s flagship project is TymeBank in South Africa. It was launched in February 2019 and has since grown to over three million customers making
TymeBank one of the fastest-growing neobanks worldwide.
Coen began his career with Edward Nathan Corporate Law Advisers (now ENS) in 1996 and became its CEO in 2000. In that year, he also joined the Nedcor Investment Bank executive committee.
In 2005, he left legal practice to join Standard Bank as Director of Community Banking. There he led a strategy to extend banking to underserved consumers, adding digital channels and more than a million additional customers to the bank. In 2011, he moved to Deloitte as a Partner in the strategy and innovation practice.
In June 2012, Tyme was spun out of Deloitte as a new venture. The business was acquired by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in January 2015, after which Coen moved to Hong Kong to lead CBA’s digital initiatives across Asia. In 2017 he was appointed Group Executive at CBA, responsible for its international retail banking and insurance business. At the end of 2018 Coen partnered with African Rainbow Capital (ARC) to buy the Tyme business from CBA.
He holds an MBA from GIBS and two law degrees with honours. He has held multiple Board positions, including eBank Namibia, Vietnam International Bank and PT Bank Commonwealth in Indonesia, which he chaired until December 2018.
Full interview → Spotify | Soundcloud | Apple
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Host of the Wharton Fintech Podcast and Co-Founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas.
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