This funding round brings TymeBank’s total money raised to over USD 260 million. The company plans to use the newly acquired funds to support its operations in South Africa and the Philippines, and to facilitate its expansion in Southeast Asia. Tyme also operates a development and engineering hub in Vietnam, as well as a Singapore headquarters that leads its strategy, business development, data, analytics and artificial intelligence efforts.
Tencent, which was the lead investor in the fintech’s USD 70 million Series B extension raise in December 2021, also participated in this pre-Series C round and increased its stake to become TymeBank’s third-largest shareholder. TymeBank is majority owned by Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital (ARC), and it is backed by other investors such as the British International Investment, Apis Growth Fund II, JG Summit Holdings, African Fig Tree, and the Ethos AI Fund.
Representatives from Norrsken22 cited by Techcrunch.com talked about Tyme and this new funding round. They mentioned how TymeBank stood out from other fintechs due to its sustained growth, differentiated product, and its ability to reach and serve new customer groups.
Operating under the Singapore-based Tyme Group, TymeBank employs a hybrid digital banking and physical service model. It offers transactional bank accounts with low or zero monthly fees and has onboarded customers through physical locations such as major retailers and churches.
The hybrid banking strategy used by TymeBank, which relies on a mix of physical and digital services, has opened up banking to South Africans from all socioeconomic classes. The bank has long-standing relationships with fashion stores such as the Foschini Group, national retailers Pick & Pay and Boxer, and the Zion Christian Church, which is the biggest church in South Africa.
GoTyme launched in the Philippines in October 2022 in partnership with the Gokongwei Group. The digital bank was modelled after South Africa’s TymeBank, and its primary goal was to provide affordable and accessible financial service solutions to Filipinos.
According to financialit.net, the group’s global footprint also comprises a product development and engineering hub in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The same source reveals that this hub employs more than three hundred engineers.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now