There are worse jobs than inheriting a business that generates R26.4bn in annual earnings and a return on equity above 40%.
That is the position Lytania Johnson found herself in when she took over as FNB CEO in April. The bank is the powerhouse of its parent, FirstRand, accounting for almost 60% of its normalised earnings. Having already spent 25 years there, it’s also a business Johnson knows intimately.
After taking over the reins from Harry Kellan, “I didn’t have to come in and say something’s broken,” Johnson tells the FM.
But there’s little room for complacency — not with competitors snapping at their heels.
Capitec, once primarily a challenger in the mass market, is making an increasingly aggressive push into business banking. Its business-banking client base more than doubled over the year to August, while FNB managed growth of just 1% during its financial year. Though the banks measure their customer bases differently, the figures illustrate the intensifying competition in the segment.
Meanwhile, retailers are encroaching on traditional banks’ territory. Pepkor, for example, is combining its Flash payments business with fintech Shop2Shop and plans to launch its own bank in 2027.
“Banking is probably going through its biggest structural shift since the internet banking era,” says Johnson.
In March, FirstRand announced a sweeping overhaul of FNB’s operating structure, joining a broader industry push to simplify banking operations and sharpen customer focus. Nedbank and Absa undertook similar restructurings in 2025, while Standard Bank reorganised its businesses back in 2021.
While its rivals have largely separated personal and business banking, FNB brought the two closer together. Its new structure combines retail and business banking under Johnson, while private banking and wealth management operate as a standalone division.
Johnson says these changes will cut complexity and speed up decisions, an essential skill when smaller rivals can move quickly. She identifies particularly attractive growth potential in the newly combined retail and business banking division.
“I see a huge opportunity to connect those two through our ecosystem and ultimately unlock compounding value,” she says.
Her idea is to deepen relationships with customers as their financial needs evolve — from personal banking to running a small business, and eventually into more sophisticated banking and investment services.
Johnson’s ambitions extend beyond traditional banking, with financial services becoming increasingly embedded in customers’ everyday lives. “We are now entering what I call an ecosystem era,” she says.
Where banks once focused on providing accounts and moving money, and later on making those services available digitally, Johnson believes the next phase will be about bringing banking into the platforms, marketplaces and retail environments customers already use.
Payments are central to this shift. “Every payment tells you something about this client,” she says, pointing to the opportunities for banks to better understand customers’ spending and borrowing habits.
But competition is intensifying as the Reserve Bank moves to open the payments system to non-banks. FNB is already feeling the pressure, with merchant-services commission and rental income falling 7% in financial 2026.
Johnson also sees growth opportunities beyond banking, particularly in insurance, investments and FNB Connect, which offers cellphone contracts, data, and prepaid services.
She wants FNB to become an “AI-native, human-centred bank”, arguing that technology should “amplify help” rather than undermine the customer experience.
Maintaining that balance may prove easier said than done. In July, Bloomberg reported that Commonwealth Bank of Australia had shed hundreds of outsourced customer-service jobs as AI took over more of its online chat operations. Many of those affected worked at a call centre near Joburg.
The challenge for FNB will be to embrace AI without losing the human touch Johnson is so keen to preserve. And as the bank becomes increasingly reliant on technology and customer data, protecting that information will be just as critical.
Last week, the bank was slapped with a R1m fine by the Information Regulator after a 2022 security flaw exposed the personal information of 88 home loan applicants to 696 unauthorised people. The regulator also found shortcomings in FNB’s security controls and its response to repeated warnings.
FNB said it has since remedied the problems and that no customers suffered financial harm. Johnson says cybersecurity is a constant concern, requiring investment in protective systems, specialist staff and monitoring of emerging threats.
So, what would success look like at the end of her tenure? Johnson says she wants FNB to be “No 1” across all its business segments, and to be known as a bank that genuinely helps its customers. Ultimately, she wants the bank to become “the financial backbone of everyday activity” for South Africans.
For FirstRand, that could mean even greater earnings potential from its most profitable franchise. But with FNB already delivering such formidable returns, Johnson has set herself a high bar.
