2 weeks Ago By Moneyweb
Over the last three years, Capitec Bank has tripled the number of its staff earning between R250 000 and R500 000 a year. Today, this comprises six out of every 10 (62%) of its 16 525 employees (or just over 10 000). In its 2024 remuneration report, it says it has made “great progress in moving a large component” of its employees from the R180 000 to R250 000 band in 2021 to beyond R250 000 in 2024.
Today, only 16% of its staff earn between R180 000 and R250 000 a year, from 61% in 2021. In other words, its managed to flip the proportions of the two completely. Vusi Mahlangu, chair of the bank’s remuneration committee, writes that “[W]e are proud of our pay improvements over the past few years.
” In 2021, this was 9% of its staff complement whereas today this is only 2%, or around 330 people. This, it says, represents its “graduates and learnership interns”, and equates to a decrease of nearly 80%. In total, 82% of its staff now earn more than R250 000 a year.
Interestingly, 10% earn more than R1 million a year. Its total salary bill, excluding those for IT staff, was R6.2 billion last year, of a total of R17 billion in operating expenses.
Its IT salary costs (including outsourced resources) totalled R1.7 billion last year. This is up 28% from the prior year, compared to a 14% increase in other staff expenditure.
This gives some hint to the big driver of the proportional increase in the cohorts earning between R500 000 and R1.5 million. Mahlangu notes that: “Fairness is also reflected in the way that we structure pay for executives and higher earners.
At this level, we manage fairness by a higher weighting of pay towards variable pay.” Read: It notes that voluntary attrition is down to 11.6% (from the industry benchmark of 15.
6%). It currently fills 63% of positions internally. The bank also disclosed that CEO Gerrie Fourie, who will be retiring at its AGM on 18 July 2025 after 25 years on its executive management team, received total remuneration of R104.
8 million in the last financial year (to 28 February 2025). Of this, ‘only’ R18.78 million was his total guaranteed pay (comprising cash salary, provident fund and benefits).
He received short-term incentives of R11 million in the year. The big contributor to his remuneration in the year was long-term incentive awards which vested in the year, totalling R75 million. It says this takes “into consideration both the delivery on the underlying return on equity and headline earnings per share performance measures, and the significant growth in Capitec’s share price from date of award up to the end of the 2025 financial year”.
Fourie, aged 61, was appointed to the boards of Capitec and Capitec Bank in September 2013. The group says “his remuneration for the 2026 financial year and post retirement will be detailed in next year’s remuneration report”. “The board is grateful to Gerrie for the incredible leadership role that he has played, and his entrenched legacy of a high-performance culture in the business will live on, especially through our approach to remuneration strategy within the organisation.
” Read: Fourie holds one million shares in the group, equating to 0.89% of its capital. At current market values, this is worth about R3.
3 billion. He retains a significant number of outstanding options in its long-term incentive schemes. It is understood he will remain consulting to the group to drive its international expansion strategy.
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