Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have the easy task to welcome you here this afternoon in this beautiful new head office of Capitec and in this spectacular atrium. You are very welcome to this AGM. I think it's the first in-person AGM since the onslaught of COVID in the beginning of 2020. Really very, very welcome. My name is Santie Botha, and I chair the boards of Capitec Bank Holdings. The year 2022 is turning out to be another tumultuous year in the history of the world. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, the financial markets in absolute turmoil, the COVID pandemic still very much with us, and our consumer out there is still under tremendous financial pressure. Capitec has also had a very eventful start to the year.
We've launched Izindaba Ezinhle, which is our broad-based Black shareholder scheme for our staff. Where we've made nearly more than 10,500 of our staff members shareholders in this business, which is quite incredible. For those of you that are here in your capacity as shareholders, I would especially like to welcome you. Also in April, we announced our financial results to the market, Gerrie and André. At Capitec, we are now serving more than 80 million clients in South Africa, which is no mean feat. In the best interest of everyone's well-being and safety, this AGM is also accessible via electronic communication, so we have quite a few people who's joining us virtually.
As a quorum of members is present, we have at least three shareholders present, and at least 25% of votes have been submitted on proxy, and notice of this meeting has been given in an appropriate manner. I declare this meeting properly constituted. The notice convening this meeting was distributed on 26 April 2022, allowing sufficient time for all members. I declare this open. I propose therefore also that the notice of this meeting is read. The procedure for voting today, this being a hybrid meeting with a virtual component, we will vote on a poll on all the resolutions proposed in the notice. We will open the voting on all the resolutions now to enable you to vote at your leisure while I read through all the resolutions.
You will see on your chairs and now probably on your laps this little piece of paper is the instructions on how to vote. If you have your tablet or your phone or your laptop here, please follow these instructions in terms of just setting it up properly in preparation. You will be able to also send questions, view the webcast, and vote whilst the poll is open. If you have joined online, I will allow for questions after all the resolutions have been read. Once all your questions have been dealt with, we will ask you to finalize your votes. We will close the poll, and then we will display the results on all the resolutions on the screen. Shareholders attending via electronic communication who wish to ask a question must select the Q&A icon. You will see it.
You then type your question in the chat box at the bottom of the messaging screen, and you then press Send. The Companies Act also requires that the audited annual financial statements, including the directors' and audit committee reports, be presented at this AGM. A summary of the financial statements and the directors' and audit committee reports have been distributed to shareholders and is available on the Capitec Bank website. Gerrie Fourie, the Group CEO of Capitec, will then, right at the end of this meeting, present an overview of Capitec's business. The Companies Act also requires a member of the Social, Ethics and Sustainability Committee to report on the affairs of this committee at this AGM. This report is included in our integrated annual report.
Emma Mashilwane, the Chairman of our Social, Ethics and Sustainability Committee, is here today, and she can address any questions that you may have at the end of this meeting. Hopefully everybody is set up and ready to vote on the resolutions, because this really is the business of the day. I will now ask Vusi Mahlangu, who is the Lead Independent Director of Capitec Bank Holdings, to preside over my election. Vusi?
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is resolution number one, the reelection of Santie Botha as an independent non-executive director of the company. Just a quick CV of Santie. She served as the executive director of MTN Group from 2003 to 2010 and was at Absa in 1996 to 2003. She was also the Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University from 2011 to 2017. She is currently the Chair of Curro Holdings and Famous Brands. Santie has received a number of awards in her life. Just to mention two, she was a businesswoman of the year in 2010, and she was also the top most respectable African in 2018. Santie was appointed to the board of Capitec and Capitec Bank, as well as the Chair of the board on 1 June 2019.
Obviously, she is present today, so please vote now on resolution number one on the re-election of Santie Botha as an independent non-executive director. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Vusi, for that. Ordinary resolution number two is the reelection of Emma Mashilwane as an independent non-executive director of the company. Emma is present. Maybe Emma, you would like to stand up. Emma is the co-founder and CEO of Masa Risk Advisory Services. Her previous positions include CFO at Carl Zeiss Optronics, head of internal audit at Nkonki Incorporated, senior manager at KPMG, and CFO at Masana Technologies. She also serves on the board of Tiger Brands and previously served on the boards of Famous Brands, as well as Murray & Roberts. Emma was appointed to the boards of Capitec and Capitec Bank on 6th March 2020. Please vote now if you have no questions on this resolution. Ordinary resolution number three is the reelection of Michiel Le Roux as a non-executive director of the company.
Now, Michiel, I don't think needs any introduction at all. Michiel, as we all know, is the founder of Capitec, and I personally like to call him the father of Capitec. His deep insight into the business, the reason for its establishment, and the ultimate success to provide affordable, accessible, simplified, and personalized banking services to all South Africans is invaluable on this board. Michiel was CEO of Capitec from inception in 2001 until 2004. After which he served as Chairman of Capitec and Capitec Bank from 2007 until May 2016, when he stepped down. He continues to serve on the boards as a Non-Executive Director. Michiel was appointed to Capitec Bank's board on 6th April 2000, and to the Capitec board on 1 March 2001.
Michiel, I don't think you need to stand up, but I would like you to stand up, please. There you are. Michiel, thank you. Please vote now. Ordinary resolution number four, the reelection of Chris Otto as a non-executive director of the company. Chris was part of the founding group of Capitec, and his corporate knowledge and experience is invaluable to the business, as well as to guide new executive directors on this board. Chris was the founding director of PSG Group and has served on the board of PSG as a non-executive director since February 2009. He is also a director of Agri Voedsel Beleggings, Distell Group, Kaap Agri, and Zeder Investments. Chris was appointed to the first boards of Capitec and Capitec Bank on 6th April 2000. Chris also does not need any introduction, but Chris is present. There he is.
Thank you, Chris. Please vote now if you have no questions on this resolution. Ordinary resolution number five is the confirmation of the appointment of Grant Hardy as an executive director of the company. Grant joined Capitec in 2015 and fulfilled various roles in the financial management division. He completed his articles in Deloitte's Financial Services division, after which he spent eight years working in various managerial positions, ranging from group finance to investment management, group treasury finance, treasury balance sheet planning and analysis, and head of finance in the banking industry in the United Kingdom. Grant is present. Grant, maybe you would like to stand up, please. Everybody can see you. That is Grant. Please vote now if you have no questions pertaining to this resolution.
Now, at this juncture, it will be remiss of me not to mention André du Plessis, who retires at the end of June 2022 after 22 years at the helm of the bank's financial division. André is also a founder of Capitec. The success of the bank speaks volumes to his exceptional leadership, passion for precision in execution, and strong business acumen over the years. He leaves the bank in a robust financial position in the hands of Grant Hardy, who has been carefully selected and mentored to take over from André. André is present, so he's not being voted for, but please, André, stand up for everybody to see you. We said goodbye this morning at our board meeting to André, and we said very clearly it's a goodbye and not a farewell.
In front of our shareholders, on behalf of the board, I would once again like to thank André du Plessis for his immense contribution to the success of Capitec. Ordinary resolution number six, the reappointment of PwC as auditors of the company up to the next AGM in 2013. Please vote now if you have no questions regarding this resolution. Ordinary resolution number seven, the reappointment of Deloitte & Touche as joint auditor until the next AGM in 2023. Also please vote now if you have no questions regarding this resolution. Ordinary resolution number eight, the authority to, one, issue loss-absorbing capital securities and, two, ordinary shares upon the occurrence of a trigger event. Please vote now if you have no questions. Ordinary resolution number nine, the general authority to issue ordinary shares for cash also. Please vote now if you have no questions.
Ordinary resolutions 10 and 11 is the non-binding endorsement of the remuneration policy and its implementation. The purpose of ordinary resolutions 10 and 11 is to test the view of shareholders of our remuneration policy and our implementation of this policy. Ordinary resolution 10, the endorsement of the rem policy. Please vote now if you have no questions pertaining to this resolution. Ordinary resolution number 11, the endorsement of the implementation of our remuneration policy. Please vote now if you have no further questions. We now move to the special resolutions, where we need 75% approval. Special resolution number one is the pre-approval of the non-executive directors' fees for the financial year that ends on 28 February 2023. Please vote now if you have no further questions.
Special resolution number two, general authority to the company and any of its subsidiaries to repurchase up to 5% of the ordinary shares issued by the company. Please vote now if you have no further questions. Special resolution number three, authority to the board to authorize the company to provide financial assistance to any related or interrelated company. Once again, please vote now if you have no questions on this resolution. Finally, special resolution number four, authority to the board to authorize the company to provide financial assistance for the acquisition of ordinary shares in respect of the restricted share plan for senior managers. Please vote now if you do not have any questions. We have now concluded on all the resolutions for this AGM.
We will deal with questions from the floor first before we will look at questions from our people that's joined online. Can I also ask, if you have a question, anyone here today, the microphone is here so that everybody that's online can hear you. You have to come to the front. I hope it's not a deterrent for you to speak in the mic and ask the question for everyone to hear you. Any questions from anyone on the floor? It's clear as daylight. Are there no questions? Any questions virtually? Anyone online with questions? No questions. It's Friday afternoon. My goodness. Okay, that takes some doing. If there's no further questions, we're gonna close the poll, and I'm gonna allow the scrutineers then to collate first.
That's gonna take about a minute, so can I ask that people just talk among yourselves for this minute, and then they can just finalize the numbers, and then I will reveal. I have the results on the screen, in terms of all the resolutions. In terms of Ordinary Resolution one, is passed with 88.19%. Ordinary Resolution two has also been voted for with 99.47%. Ordinary Resolution three has been voted for with 94.74%, so passed. Ordinary Resolution four, voted for with 85.63%. Ordinary Resolution five, 96.93%, so it's carried. Resolution six, 77.09%, so it's carried. Seven, 98.75%, so voted for. Eight, 99.11%, voted for.
Ordinary Resolution nine, 98.23%, so it's carried. Ordinary Resolution 10, 79.08%, carried. Ordinary Resolution 11, 52.54%. That is the non-binding vote for the implementation of the remuneration policy, so that is not carried. If we look at the special resolutions, one, 99.21%, that's carried. Two, 99.48%, it's carried. Three, 99.94%, so pass. Special Resolution four, 99.84%. That's passed as well. Thank you very much. All the resolutions therefore has been passed or carried with the requisite majority vote, except for Ordinary Resolution number 11, which is the non-binding endorsement of the implementation of our remuneration policy.
As the remuneration implementation policy did not pass with the requisite 75% non-binding endorsement vote, we will once again set a formal date to further engage with our shareholders on this matter. On behalf of the board, what I'd also like to say is just to thank shareholders who proactively met and engaged with us as board members, and in particular with members of the Remuneration Committee prior to this AGM. We also take note of input and advice given to shareholders by independent advisors prior to this AGM. I would really like to re-emphasize that we, as the board of Capitec, have an open invitation to all our shareholders to engage with us on any Capitec-related matter, and in particular on RemCo issues. Please feel free.
In closing, I would just like to say again, Emma Mashilwane, who's gonna depart for the airport probably shortly, is Chairman of Social and Ethics. She is present, but if you need to have a word with her, she's available to answer any questions pertaining to that. Ladies and gentlemen, last word from me. I would just like to thank you once again for your support, for your interest, and just being here this afternoon. We are all exceptionally proud of Capitec and having founders still in the business. I think for any business, it's a privilege, both on our board and Gerrie, our CEO, who's leading the charge. I think this business is in exceptional hands. Gerrie, on that note, I'm gonna hand over to you. Thank you.
Thanks, Santie. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a privilege to give you an overview of last year. I think it's a little bit of a history because our dream was to actually. Maybe just for background, we were in 13 offices, basically about 1 km from here, and we wanted to build that culture. This was part of our dream to have everyone together. Then COVID happened. It actually happened about two weeks after we've moved in, so we had to move out. It's a privilege that Derek is here. That also helped us in the design of the building. Then we always said we wanted to have our AGM here, and that also didn't happen. Three years later, here we are. I think that's quite nice.
I spoke to Donné now, and I suddenly remembered that it's three years ago that I actually spoke to somebody live. I was talking to TV screens in the past. That's quite different. What we're gonna cover today is talk about, cover the last five years, because the company has changed quite a lot in the last five years. It's not the company I think that you still know. Maybe just talk about the company, then quickly look at the year that's gone past or maybe the last two years, and then the environment that we operate in, because it's not easy out there. What do we do? How do we grow? The future, I think that's the most important part.
How's that future looking and where we are going. If we look at the last five years, I think the most important aspect of where we are is that absolute passion for our clients. Every single thing that we're doing is about our client, that client-centric focus. I think what is important, it's not only about delivering a product, it's that end-to-end client service. Even if something goes wrong, how do you recover? It's that passion end to end that actually, I think differentiate us. If I look at the last five years, five, six points that I wanna highlight, I think our agility. You're sitting in a complex environment that's changing the whole time, and you need to be agile, you need to be flexible, you need to change quickly.
In last year, we made close to 400 credit policy decisions and changes. That just shows you how agile and how quickly we can move. I remember with COVID, in that last six months of COVID, we launched seven new products. That just shows you the agility. I think that also brings in if you look at the five years, our cumulative growth on our bottom line 17%. If you take inflation, let's say 5%, then you've actually overachieved with 12%. I think we can all be proud of that achievement. The scary number, 9.4 million new clients that has joined us. It's quite scary to think we're bringing in close to two million clients every month.
If I look at the first two months of this year, we're still on 200,000 a month. I don't know where it's gonna end. I'll talk about that later. 9.4 million new clients in five years. The best digital bank. I don't think we talk a lot about it, but we've been voted a couple of times now as the best digital bank in South Africa. You're sitting there with 6.5 million clients that is making use of our digital app. It's quite scary. 2014, we launched the app for the first time.
I spoke yesterday to our Firm Foundations people, and I said, "2010, we didn't even know what an app is." Now 2014 we launched, and now you're sitting with 6.5 million. It's actually, if you look at people that sign on, it's probably more 10 million people that's using our app. Credit performance I've spoken about. I think the ability to, in these tough times, to actually read the economy, work through the economy, make changes, has helped us going through, I know, four, five years. I know three years ago, we've cut back, for example, the small and tiny companies, because we just said they're gonna take pressure. We didn't know about COVID. Those companies, unfortunately, took the brunt of it.
I think then the most important thing is to focus on our people. You're not successful if you haven't got a big focus on people, and I'm talking about culture. We spent the last five years tremendous amount of time, and just for you that don't know, we espouse cultures about our client first, then our people, and then our delivery. Everything we do and live is about those culture and our leadership traits. If I look at client numbers, there you can see the client numbers. We had 18 million clients and 10 million clients that's on digital. Six million that's on the app. Four million that's on USSD. That number is still increasing month-on-month. Importantly is seven million clients that actually saves with us.
They've got a fixed term savings account with ourselves. They trust us to save money for themselves, seven million clients. Then 4.6 million is the clients that actually banks with us. They're using our app, and they've got a debit order with ourselves. That is our core banking clients or primary banking clients. That's your potential that you're looking at. If you're looking at that 18 million versus the 4.6 million. Maybe what is important on that 18 million, we've opened accounts about 25 million. A lot of people report on accounts. We report on active clients. That 18 million is people that we actually earn money from. Every month, they pay their monthly fee, it's active clients. In total, we've got about 25 million clients.
We are saying, "What is actually producing income for ourself?" You can see also what has happened is that we've got a very strong growth in clients that's earning more than 15,000. Our whole drive to become a bank for all South Africans. Our client base now is representing South Africa. The interesting one, people sometimes think we give credit to everyone. We've got an open checkbook. It's only 1.2 million clients that's got credit with ourself. It's a very strong philosophy on credit. If 100 client comes into our branches, only 20% gets approved and actually take up a loan. Very strict on the credit side.
You can see on funeral where that has gone basically from 0.4 million in the first year to where it's now at 1.7 million clients. This is an interesting stat, is that if you look at our fees, we've basically kept our fees over five years flat. You can see I've put in here on the right-hand side, if you add inflation accumulative for five years, with where the fees is gonna be. I think that's the power of Capitec, is the fact that you've got these volumes that's coming through. We can cut our unit cost, and we can actually create value for our clients. I don't think there's a lot of companies in South Africa or even the world that can say they've actually reduced prices.
Those in red is reduced or even flat, or below inflation over a five-year period. That's what the brand has done, and that's what the capability of volumes has actually given you to scale. I think that is a very positive slide. Just quick, in five years, the products that we've launched, 20 products in total. It's quite scary if you look at 20 products. You will ask myself, why is the new bank app on there? We launched it in 2014, and then in 2017, 2018, we realized it's not gonna take the volumes. It's not gonna handle it, and we need to re-platform it completely. Today, you can open up an account on your app. We remote deliver your card to yourself. We do Send Cash.
We've got scan to pay, and I'm gonna talk a lot about payments going forward on QR payments, where we believe the future is. A lot of development in that particular area that's coming through. On EasyEquities. Everyone knows we've got that partnership with EasyEquities where you can actually trade on their platform. What is quite interesting, you can buy a quarter of a share or 20% of a share. You can actually buy shares in America. We've got over 200,000 clients that's making use of EasyEquities. Live Better. I'll talk about Live Better later on, but that's where we believe we gonna disrupt, or take loyalty to a next level, and bring real value to our clients. On insurance side, I think two things has happened.
Funeral, I think everyone has seen what Funeral has done, 1.7 million clients. We're still acquiring 100,000 clients per month. On the credit side, I think it's the one thing that COVID has taught us. I remember we always renew our reinsurance in April, and then COVID happened, and nobody wanted to help us. We couldn't get anyone to reinsure our credit life. We had to take it on our chin, and we managed it, and today we self-insure it. We've learned lessons through it, but this was a positive lesson that came through it. On the credit side, we're giving unsecured credit now up to ZAR 500,000. It's not small money anymore.
That's on the whole purpose side, on the housing side, the car side. We're starting from a prime. Everyone has got this perception that we or the people is getting 20% and 25%. But we actually have risk-based rate from prime up to 21% based on your risk performance. Then on the Access Facility, I will elaborate that. I think that is changing the whole landscape in unsecured lending. On Capitec Home Loans, it always used to be SA Home Loans, but we actually rebranded it, and then it's now our product, but it's on their balance sheet that we've got a home loan product for our clients. It's quite amazing, 20 new products that we've launched. If I look at income, and I think this is an interesting graph.
In February 2017, 75% of our income was coming from credit, and 22% was coming from transactional income. Now we're looking at where we are now. We're looking at ZAR 10 billion that's coming in from transactional income. There's ZAR 2.5 billion that's coming in from insurance. You can see insurance is starting to play a very important role in our income. ZAR 14 billion coming in from credit. Credit is only now 51% of our income. You can see how we've actually diversified completely away because that transactional income and insurance income is giving you annuity income. You can actually go through economic cycles.
The other way to look at it is if I look at our of our OpEx, our operating expenses, 100% is actually being covered by transactional income and funeral. Your credit is actually for free, if you really wanna look at it in a very simplistic manner. You can see how that has changed completely. I think other big change that we've seen is how clients has moved away from cash. If you look at that light blue, you can see cash is actually fairly flat. Especially, I think if you take that as per client, it will actually go down. You can see cash was February 2020 ZAR 460 million. Now it's ZAR 500 million.
It's fairly flat, but you can see the strong growth in the card and transactional side, and digital side. That's a massive change that's taking place, and that's what we're driving deliberately, trying to move people away from cash and actually moving them to card and to digital payments. You've had a big swing in client behavior. If I look at our credit side, our credit side has also changed quite a lot. If you look at our total book in February 2017, you can see we had a book of ZAR 44 billion. That whole term loan book till today is ZAR 50 billion. If you look at 2022. But now you've seen it's changed completely. You can see what credit card has done.
Credit card is now close to ZAR 7 billion through our direct channel. Then you can see business banking. I'm seeing Carl there at the back. Business banking book is basically secured. 99% is secured, and that's 12.8 billion. You can see our credit book has changed dramatically. Just remember, if you're talking about secured lending, you have prime plus one. We believe there's still a lot of opportunities in that particular area. Question I always get is provisioning. Are we conservative? Are we not conservative? We believe we are conservative. That red line goes up in February 2019, but that's because the accounting standards has changed to IFRS 9.
You can see, if you look at where we are now, even through this whole COVID era, what we are providing for, we were at 20.4% in February 2019, and we're now at 20.9%. You can see the spike with COVID, how we've actually provided extra. We still believe we're very conservative in our provisioning, and we will continue be conservative on the provisioning side. I think the graph over five years, our earnings was ZAR 3.7 billion in February 2017. Now we're ZAR 8.4 billion. I think as shareholder, the interesting number is we paid out in February 2017, that year, we paid out ZAR 1.4 billion in dividends. This year, we paid out ZAR 6 billion in dividends, of which ZAR 1.7 billion was a special dividend.
We definitely looked after the shareholders after the COVID years. I think if you look at that growth, very strong growth. Our ROE over this period, around about 26%-27%, and our capital adequacy above, around about 34%-35%. If you look at it over a five-year period, I think we can be proud of how the company's performed and what we've achieved with the company. I would like to share with you a video. We are Capitec. Every single person in the bank has gone through a leadership course, making certain that they understand where our vision is, where what our strategy is, what do we wanna deliver this year. I would like to share that video with yourself. Thanks, agent.
Since the start of COVID two years ago, we were brutally confronted with VUCA, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. It challenged the way we work, socialize, learn, and connect. In some cases, it took the ultimate toll here at Capitec, as we had to say goodbye to 14 of our friends and colleagues. As a country, we also had to survive an unrest with disastrous economic consequences. Imagine the distress our Capitec colleagues went through when 80 of our branches were destroyed. Once again, our resilience was called upon. Our clients did not have a branch to go to, no ATMs to withdraw money from, and the home away from home for our service consultants did not exist anymore. We rallied together to support our fellow team members.
Our ops people were redeployed to other positions and branches, while our properties division had to work day and night to restore our branches. We also had to care for our clients and communities that were disrupted by the economic disaster. The entire organization got involved in the rebuilding through initiatives like the feeding schemes and cleaning operations as enabled through our employee volunteer program. In among these major disruptions, the show had to go on, but it was not business as usual. Something changed over the past two years. Not our commitment to our clients. Not our energy and passion for what we do. Not our drive to show up and own up. No. A much deeper sense has become part of our emotional makeup. A sense of ubuntu. Despite the pandemic and unrest, we are grateful and proud that not a single job was lost.
On the contrary, we are still creating job opportunities, with more than 2,000 new people having joined our company in the past two years. We are grateful to our service consultants and relationship managers who are the faces of Capitec and delivered exceptional service. Our support teams at our campuses for working tirelessly behind the scenes to make this possible. Our leadership for living our values and putting our people and our clients first. Together, we are Capitec. How do we as Capitec keep building this great company? The answer is simple. Staying true to our purpose, our reason for coming together, our why to help clients bank better so they may live better. At Capitec, it will always be client first. All the solutions we launched over the past two years were designed to help clients bank better so they can live better.
This includes our revamped home loans, purpose lending solutions, opening accounts on our app, WhatsApp banking, scan to pay, virtual card delivery, new merchant solutions, Live Better benefits, financial education solutions, and numerous enhancements to our business bank offering. The focus on moving clients to our digital platforms to make banking easier and more accessible for them is also part of the strategy to make it easier for our service consultants. If they do not have to spend time on transactions that could be done on the app or the SSTs, they will have more time to have quality interactions with the client, ensuring the personalized service experience that differentiates us from our competitors. Thanks to this philosophy, our clients continue to grow.
Now over 18 million, and these clients are doing significantly more digital payments, more app transactions, and are making more use of our credit, savings, and insurance solutions. They are now also getting more back with our Live Better rewards program. This philosophy helped us to build the second strongest banking brand in the world, according to the Brand Finance 2022 banking report, and one of the fastest-growing brands in South Africa, according to the Kantar BrandZ study. A brand that captured the hearts of South Africans because it stood up for the neglected market 20 years ago by asking why, and that continues to challenge the status quo today. Here we are on the doorstep of yet another year of madness, excitement, stress, learning, challenging ourselves to go above and beyond. Always showing up and owning up. We are Capitec, and for us, it's about client first.
It's about helping our clients bank better, save better, and live better. We are building a bank for everyone. With over 18 million clients, about the population of New York, it is clear we are thinking differently about banking, challenging convention, and building a movement that is striving to become the best bank in the world. We are Capitec.
I think we can be proud of what we've achieved. It's interesting just to maybe give a summary of our DNA. Henk myself was in April in the KwaZulu-Natal branches. Actually the first time we were doing it on Teams, we were talking to them as it were first time we were physically there. I can't explain it enough about the appreciation of our staff saying thank you for ourselves that during that whole time, we've paid salaries, there was no debate. There were 80 branches, so you're talking about 200, 300 people that they couldn't go and work. We've redeployed those people to help via Teams on our call centers, etc, etc . A lot of the other companies was no work, no pay.
What you've built in that KwaZulu-Natal, that teamwork and how they help the clients, I think you can't. You've got no value for it. It's unbelievable. If I quickly look at the income statement, and I'm just gonna break it in three areas, is under income from operations. You can see we year-over-year, we're up 17% on the credit side. We're actually flat if you look at net credit, so that's because of the Access Facility that's come in and the restructuring of the book. We've also put ZAR 12 billion in government bonds, where we're earning about 5% more. You can see that very strong growth in the transactional side, 21%, so that is very promising.
Funeral income close to ZAR 1 billion profit, that just shows you the power of our distribution network, the power of our 850 branches selling it. You had a 17% growth. Creating payments I've spoken about. You can see how we've released our provisions, but we still have that coverage ratio of 21%, which I've showed previously. Our book has moved completely to more higher quality clients, so it's much more higher income levels. We've actually deliberately moved away with people earning less than ZAR 4,000. In our provisioning, we've still got a forward economic view of just over ZAR 3 billion that we're still carrying for the economy and for Ukraine, etc, etc .
You can see from a provisioning side, very conservative, making certain we are covered for the way forward. Then the question I always ask is, on OpEx, why did OpEx grow by 33%? Are you guys crazy? I think very importantly is the ZAR 700 million for the BEE scheme where the staff were actually empowered and own shares. It's interesting also, I was in a hotel, visiting a startup meeting. Startup meeting is from 7:45 A.M. till 8:00 A.M. They don't call it a startup meeting anymore. It's now a shareholders meeting. Our staff is every morning having a shareholders meeting. It's just a different culture and ownership that you've created. Yeah, we don't only look after shareholders.
You got your dividend, but we actually paid out, if you're gonna look at that, ZAR 1.3 billion-ZAR 1.4 billion we've paid out on bonuses and share appreciation to our staff. So if you take it out, then our OpEx only grew by 11%. We see that our OpEx will grow for the next couple of years, double-digit figures, because we're investing quite a lot into the future. That is basically your income statement. If you look at, we've moved from COVID from ZAR 4.5 billion-ZAR 8.4 billion. I actually look at it and say if I look at it over a two-year period, then we've grown by 16% year-on-year.
I think if you can go through COVID and the unrest and you grow with 16%, then you can be happy with your performance. If I move on, probably that's the question everyone is asking, what is happening in the economy, and what's gonna happen? My standard answer is I don't know, because I think I can't see in that crystal ball. It's interesting, we were just in America and London talking to asset managers, and everyone is asking me, "What is gonna happen with inflation in South Africa?" I said, "Tell me what's gonna happen with inflation in America." Then they quiet. I think there's quite a challenge because if you look at our inflation is, let's say, 6%. America is at 8%, UK is at 9%.
I can promise you traveling now for the first time where beer was $5, now it's $8. You're suddenly at ZAR 16, you're feeling it. But I think it's gonna be interesting if you look at the PPI. UK has come in with a PPI, producer price index of 30%. So I think we're in for very challenging times in this next, I would say 12-18 months, that one needs to manage. It's interesting yet if you go and look at the company's performance that we're seeing on the business banking, we're seeing strong performance from there. But there's a lot of pressure on our clients.
Yes, if I go and look at, again, we look at people that is cash-stressed, so they've got less than 20% left. That has actually improved. You're getting very mixed signals. I think one will need to work through it. I think China is gonna have a big impact. We all know that they've got COVID regulations, and there's a big supply shortage that's been caused by that. I think then the biggest challenge, not only here but also worldwide, is the shortage of skills. We spent this morning probably half an hour in the board meeting discussing skill shortage, the South African education system, the demand.
Because what you're finding is there's a certain number of people, and they're just moving around, and the salaries are just going higher and higher and higher. So there's a tremendous focus on that side. Inequality because of COVID. Yeah, I'm not gonna talk about infrastructure. I'm not gonna talk about Eskom. I think everyone knows what's happening on that particular side. I think what is also important from a shareholder is to understand that the competition has moved away from just banks. We're talking now about the big tech companies, Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay. They're all starting to come in. And I've always said if you look at WhatsApp, we're all using WhatsApp. But the moment you start...
You're so used to it and you start adding a bank account on it, people is gonna start transacting. Those are where our mindset is. Then we're looking at the Vodacom, the MTNs. You need to think today because everyone is moving away from pure banking to financial services and how do we actually bring that in. Even the retailers, Shoprite Checkers has come in with a bank account. Everyone thinks banking is quite easy. But I think it's your mindset to say, how do you solve the financial need of the client in totality? I think it's quite challenging.
I look at why we are growing, apart from culture and clients and, etc, etcc . I think in a very short summary, you're sitting with 18 million clients. You're sitting with 850 branches. So a tremendous, powerful distribution network. You're sitting with 10,000 consultants that can actually sell. That very few people understand our market share per product is far below 10%. On credit, we've got about a 6% market share. On savings, a 7% market share. On insurance, we've got a 1% market share. On business banking, we're below 1%. So you're sitting with this client base, but you've got a massive opportunity on the market share to optimize your revenue streams. I'm quickly gonna cover our focus on growth.
I think the one word that's very strong here is focus, because you need to focus in a turbulent environment to be successful. I think this basically sums it up, is that obsession to give clients a simplistic, transparent bank offers that they really understand. Because if you don't understand something, you can't sell it, you can't create word of mouth. Word of mouth is critical in this game. Very strong focus on innovation. Then a challenger mindset. I think there's few companies that we are saying, how do we disrupt ourself? As we're sitting here, we're saying, "How can we disrupt funeral? How can we disrupt our credit side?" It's that mindset that you need to have. Then we always stick to our fundamentals.
This what we have created is a single solution for Capitec. If you're gonna look at our full product range, the only thing that we are missing is a secured vehicle product, and we're actually working on that currently. We offer the full range, but what is unique is every single client, doesn't matter what your income is, what your level is, who you are, you get exactly the same. There's no differentiation. Everyone get a black card, everyone gets the same fee structure, everyone is treated exactly the same. There's not a lot of companies that can actually say that they treat all clients exactly the same. If you look at our service model, I think that's. I always get this question, but what is the digital players gonna do?
I believe you need to have not only a digital platform, but you need to be able to service the client on multiple channels. What we've got is physical channels, that's our branches. You're sitting with your call centers. You're sitting with your digital channel. What everyone forgets is the ability to engage with your clients. How do we work with 18 million clients? I think the first thing is, yeah, we've all seen, we've got 850 branches. What people don't realize is if you go into a branch, that self-service area is starting to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's got the same experience as what you're seeing on the app.
What we are doing is creating that the person has got confidence in helping himself, and then he moves onto the app. Then we've got 7,000 ATMs, and that's probably the one nightmare we've got, is those queues at ATMs. That is to say, how do we actually get that away? If you look at our call center, it's quite scary to think about 7.9 million clients that has actually contacted our call center. 34 million minutes that we're talking on at the call center. We've got over 1,400 people in those call centers available to service our clients. Then Capitec Direct. Capitec Direct is the ability to actually offer, over the telephone, credit, insurance, and switching to yourself. That book is growing.
We're over ZAR 4 billion now on Capitec Direct. That's that need of the client that says, "I don't wanna go to a branch. I want credit, and I wanna move to a one-on-one situation." App. I've already spoken about the 10 million clients that's on the app. 1.4 billion transactions that was done on the app last year. We're hitting now 6,000 transactions per second on the app on a peak day. We can go up to twelve thousand seconds or twelve thousand transactions per second. Maybe just to give you some perspective, I was somewhere in a conference and I thought we're quite grand with our number. Then people were talking like Google and these people, they're talking 100,000-200,000 transactions per second.
It shows you what can be done in that particular area. On the engagement side, the ability to engage with your clients, analyze your clients, understanding your clients, and actually talking to them via email, app, etc, etc . 275 million engagements that's actually taken place to our clients to inform them on where we are going. If I look at leadership or people, the most important is I get a lot of question on succession planning, especially with our André that's now retiring. I've got two answers there. I said, if you look at the last eight years, we've lost, or not lost, we've six of our execs have retired, and we've actually replaced them seamlessly. There's a long-term view of actually making certain they are successors.
If you're looking at the business, we're actually sitting with a group exco, we're sitting with a retail exco, and a business banking exco, and they drive those organizations as if it's their own and take ownership of it. So there's a very big focus on leadership and succession planning. Very strong focus on CEO culture, where we believe every single person in the bank is a CEO, and the C stands for client, the E is energy, and the O is ownership. So we really would like people to take decisions, own up. If you look at the whole organization, it's been divided up where there's business owners that takes full ownership of a product or a process to have full accountability on the income streams which they are delivering to ourselves.
Talent acquisition and development. I've spoken about how important it is to develop and grow people from within. I think the biggest challenge for us going forward, and I'm now talking, I think, worldwide, is this working from home, working from office. I'm a big believer in working from office. If you wanna engage, if you wanna develop people, if you want shoulder to shoulder, you need to have that flexibility to work from home, but you need to be in the office to really engage. I think that is the. The companies that's gonna get this right is gonna be the companies that's gonna be successful going forward. Because you can't go 100% from home, and you can't go 100% from offices.
That mix and the top, your leaders need to be here. A person that's a clerk that's just performing certain tasks, they can be at home. You need to have that engagement and making certain people understand your culture. That, for us, is a very high focus to make certain that we get that recipe right. The area that we don't speak about a lot is CSI, or what we do in our community. If I look at the bottom left block, for every ZAR our staff contribute, the company contributes ZAR 2 . We encourage our people to be involved in the communities. We were very actively involved now with the floods, with the unrest, giving money, making certain it goes through.
Interesting as we had to fly in food for our own staff and their families, when the KwaZulu-Natal unrest took place, to make certain that they have got food. It's that mindset that you need to have. Very strong focus on enterprise development. Imvelo is our fund where we're actually investing in startup companies, BEE kind of companies, to make certain that they contribute. Then if you look at the Capitec Foundation on math and high school level, it's quite interesting what we're focusing on, making certain that the headmaster undergoes basically MBA. Because if he understands how to manage the school and you can get your math teachers on a standard, you lift your criteria with 20%, 30%, 40%.
We've seen it bringing these people to UCT to really go through that course and make certain they really understand how to manage and lead our people. A very strong focus on social development. Now, probably the most important, the future. I didn't say one year, two years, three years. It's probably more for the next couple of years. I spoke last night at Firm Foundations. That's where all our people come through. I said, "I feel excited as I was when we started the company," because it feels for me we're starting again with the opportunities there is. If I look at, probably the number one priority for us is payments. Payments is to make payments easy for the client and take people away from cash. 'Cause the moment I can.
A person is doing a payment, then we can understand what behavior he's doing. We've got data. If we've got data, then we can add value to his life. We can provide credit. We can do a lot of things. That is a very big focus for us. That's why we've launched QR. You've seen there scan to pay. If you wanna pay, you can just scan on a QR code and you pay immediately. We're in pilot now, whereby a client, if I wanna pay Danny, and he's sitting in George, playing golf, then I can actually send him a WhatsApp message. He just accept it, and on QR he gets paid. It's just to make that whole process easier and make it more affordable.
There's quite a lot of focus on the payment side. I think the one that you actually gonna see is if you go online, I hate it when I have to put in my credit card details, my surname, my address, and all that nonsense. Capitec Pay Me , you put that details in automatically, and then we store it for yourself. In the moment if you wanna pay online, you just click on it, and you confirm your with a password, and you've paid. You've got no interaction. It makes that whole online payment side slick. A tremendous focus on that. I can sit here for hours and talk about payments.
AJ has produced a video for us to look at the future of payments and that you maybe better understand where we are going with payments. Well, key focus areas, we talk about game changers that we're really focusing on, is actually changing that behavior of the client. I think the other ones that we're looking at is Live Better. If we look at Live Better, is our loyalty program. Again, it's different to other loyalty programs 'cause we see loyalty programs as complex. People don't understand it. 10% of people understand it, 90% don't understand it at all. Here, it's very simple.
If you have got one of our products, you've got three recurring payments, and you use five transactions on your app, you get 0.5% on your debit card and 1.5% on your credit card. Simple. Everyone actually gets it. The whole drive here is to bring the clients' top of wallet. The majority of clients has got two or three tops of banks that they got, and we wanna make certain that a Capitec card is the first one that they actually take out. Coming back to payments, is the ability to make certain we've got the data. We're busy and we're in a project, a massive project, where we're moving all our data from on-prem to cloud.
We should be finished by October next year, and that gives you computing capabilities. It gives you a lot of extra power. Just to give you an example, our provisioning model used to run five to six days, now it's running four hours. You can better engage with your client. You can better understand what's happening because you can use machine learning and insights to optimize the client side. On the credit side, we've always done where if you need to have a payslip to get credit from ourselves. We're starting now very strongly to go into other income and multiple income. If a person has got a payslip, but he's got rental or he's got a dividend or some other income, we're starting to bring that into our streams.
That actually links in then also to a last one, is our business banking where we believe in business banking, the big opportunity lies on unsecured credit that you give to SMEs and not in institutional credit. Yes, that is gonna be a focus. How do we use our knowledge that we've got in retail to optimize business banking and to create what we've done in retail and build the unsecured side over a period? We are full out, going flat out to actually rebrand in March next year. Complete digital offer, whereby you can do everything on a portal or on your app. I'm quite exciting about the things that we've got.
Carl and them have designed a 30-page on exactly how everything is gonna work, and I think the board was quite excited about this this morning, spelling out exactly what we do. I'm quite if you look at those five big areas that we're gonna focus, payments, Live Better, data, credit, and business banking, I believe there's plenty of room for us to grow. Lastly, from my side, I wanna thank first the Capitec team, the employees, our leadership team, our exco, our divisional exco. It's an incredible journey to actually work with all the people, the energy, the passion for the brand, the focus on the client. From my side, thanks a lot for that. For the shareholders, for your contribution and believing in ourselves, thanks for that.
Lastly, for the board, Santie, to you and your team, your support, your understanding, thanks a lot. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot. The chips and bubblegum is if you go up the stairs, but I'll promise you there's wine. Let's make it wine, chow, and chips and bubblegum. There's lifts as well for people that just don't wanna go up with the stairs. From my side, enjoy yourself. The management team are there, so if you wanna ask questions, you can ask us questions anytime you want. Thank you very much.