Why all banks are chasing affluent customers

The average revenue that at least one of the Big Four banks is able to achieve per affluent client is 10 times that of a mass market customer. Image: AdobeStock The middle market has long ceased to be the primary battleground for the country’s major banks. The real battle is for affluent customers – and not just those who would typically use (and expect) private banking.

Even Capitec is getting in on the action. In thesix months to August 2025, it saw 24% growth in customers earning more than R50 000 per month (against an 8% increase in its 25 million active base). Growth in the affluent segment continues to exceed that of the broader base across the big five banks.

Absa says the number of active clients in its affluent segment grew 6% last year, with those in private wealth banking up 7%. FNB’s ‘Private’ segment (for those earning more than R750 000 a year) grew customer numbers by 8%, versus the 2% growth in its ‘Personal’ (mass/mid-market) for thesix months to end-December. Nedbank and Standard Bank haven’t segmented their customer bases for 2025, but there is little reason to doubt that growth is more robust at the top end.

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Standard Bank has, for the first time, offered a more detailed picture of the two types of customers. In the ‘private’ segment, there are 1.5 million customers “from young professionals to high-net-worth individuals and families”. The bulk of these bases is in South Africa, given that it has 12 million active retail clients in this market and 4.5 million north of us.

Affluent clients tend to hold many more of the bank’s products than those in the personal segment. In South Africa, clients in the private segment have an average of eight products and solutions, spanning transactional accounts, savings, credit, insurance, home loans, vehicle finance and payments. For clients in the personal segment, this number is an average of three.

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