(Bloomberg) — Discovery Ltd.’s banking unit is rolling out a mortgage product in South Africa that will enable clients to pay as much as 1% less on their home loans and lower interest repayments dynamically through its Vitality rewards program.
Discovery Bank estimates that 60% of its clients are overpaying on their existing mortgages, and that they could save as much as 2.8 billion rand in interest payments on their current loans, Chief Executive Officer Hylton Kallner said.
Unlocking the lower rates requires clients to be members of Discovery’s Vitality program — which offers discounts on purchases and insurance to people who keep fit, eat healthily, save funds and drive carefully. The initiative has 1.2 million members in South Africa. To qualify for lower rates, customers would need to use the company’s insurance products.
The offering will put Discovery up against bigger rivals such as Standard Bank Group Ltd. — which provides 33% of home loans in South Africa — as well as FirstRand Ltd., Absa Group Ltd., and Nedbank Group Ltd., which make up the country’s four biggest banks by assets and control almost 90% of the mortgage market.
A lower interest rate would provide relief to South African borrowers who have grappled with 475 basis points of interest-rate increases since late 2021. The ratio of household debt to disposable income averaged 62% in the three months to September 2023, South Africa Reserve Bank data show.
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