Global accolade highlights South Africa’s homegrown fintech success story
South African-born digital banking pioneer Tyme Group has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies for 2025, a global honour that recognises organisations making an extraordinary impact through bold innovation and transformative scale.
Founded in South Africa and now operating across two continents, Tyme joins the ranks of global giants and past honourees such as Apple, Nubank, OpenAI, and TikTok. This milestone reinforces the company’s mission to serve entire populations – not just the privileged few – through inclusive, accessible digital banking. Listing Tyme as a “Pioneer” in the renowned list, TIME highlights how Tyme’s growth story is “fuelled by a simple idea: meet underbanked individuals where they already are.”
“Being named one of the 100 most influential companies in the world isn’t just about our business success,” said Karl Westvig, CEO of TymeBank. “It reflects our mission to build a banking platform that helps people realise their ambitions – from growing a business to managing household finances with confidence. We’re building banks that work for everyone, and the world is taking notice.”
About Tyme
Tyme is a multi-country digital banking group focused on serving consumers and SMEs in emerging markets. Tyme designs, builds, and operates digital banks, with a particular expertise in emerging markets. Tyme recognises the unique challenges of banking in emerging markets, and leverages technology innovatively, through a high tech-high touch approach, to meet the needs of emerging market customers. It launched its second digital bank, GoTyme, in the Philippines, in partnership with the Gokongwei Group, in October 2022 and a merchant cash advance lending solution into Indonesia in early 2025. Tyme recently secured a MoneyLender’s license for Hong Kong. Across the Group, Tyme now serves over 17 million customers and 150,000 SMEs.
For more information, please visit www.tyme.com.
