(Bloomberg) -- Old Mutual Ltd. is planning to roll out its new bank in South Africa before the end of 2024 after the continent’s biggest insurer by assets got further funding from its board for the project.

The company has built the new lender’s core functions within a previously allocated budget of 1.75 billion rand ($92 million), and its board has approved a further round of funding of 800 million rand to get the project through to its official start, Chief Executive Officer Iain Williamson said in an interview Wednesday.

“We think we’re still on track, subject to the regulatory timelines,” Williamson said. “We’re still on track to launch before the end of this year.”

Old Mutual is awaiting regulatory approval certifying that its systems are operational. After that, it will start tests to integrate those into the Payments Association of South Africa, followed by a pilot with a small group of customers before launching to the public later in the year, Williamson said. 

The lender, whose name Old Mutual hasn’t disclosed, will target upper affluent and lower affluent customers primarily and will put Old Mutual in competition with some of the biggest banks on the continent. Its entry into the South African market will increase competition in a country where almost 85% of citizens already have a bank account, according to World Bank data. 

The Johannesburg-based firm expects its new lending unit to break even three years after launch. 

Old Mutual’s profit surged 35% last year, driven by “exceptional” growth in new business at Africa’s biggest insurer by assets and by market-share gains.

Net income jumped to 7.07 billion rand in the 12 months ended Dec. 31 from 5.23 billion rand a year earlier, the company said in a statement Wednesday. New business surged 37%, while gross written premiums climbed 14%. The insurer’s return on net asset value rose to 11.1% from 9.4%.

Old Mutual declared a final dividend of 49 cents per share, taking the total payout for the year to 81 cents per share. The insurer’s shares climbed as much as 5.4%, the biggest jump in more than two weeks, before paring gains to 3.5% by 10:20 a.m. in Johannesburg.

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