South Africa quietly built a $1bn bank with almost no branches. In December 2024, TymeBank became a unicorn at a $1.5bn valuation, the first African digital bank to actually turn a profit. The trick is simple. Instead of building branches, it drops a small kiosk inside shops you already visit, Pick n Pay and Boxer, where you open an account in about 5 minutes. No branch to build, no tellers, no queue. The same model now runs in the Philippines as GoTyme, backed by Brazil's Nubank and China's Tencent. So if you can reach millions without branches, why do the big banks still build them? #TymeBank #SouthAfrica #Fintech #DigitalBanking #GlobalArbitrage