Tips to stay safe while you bank these holidays

Whether you are spending some time at home or some time away this holiday season, it is important to remain vigilant when banking, shopping or holidaying. Here are some tips to make sure you stay safe over the silly season.

Get #48hours exclusive access to rock with KISS in their final World Tour!

Join rock stars, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer, and Eric Singer, as they take stage in SA during their "End of the Road" final tour in July 2020! One show only! Get your tickets first with exclusive 48-hour early access.

Johannesburg, Ticketpro Dome, 25 July 2020

Be the first, book now - check your inbox for the booking link.

It's #BankFriday this November!

The start of Black Friday and festive season spending sprees are here. While you seek the good deals, we've got even more for you!

If you have an old Discovery Card or are a Discovery Bank client with a new Discovery Card or Discovery Debit Card, you could stand a chance to win incredible experiences as seen in our Discovery Bank TV ad.

Discovery Bank clients can also win a grand prize of an all-inclusive trip to experience the English Premier League live in the UK. You'll fly to London and be ready to explore the city as you're transferred to your four-star hotel. You and your partner can enjoy a day of shopping and touring with your R20 000 spending money before gearing up to watch two giants battle it out on the field. 

How it works

If you shop with your Discovery Card or Discovery Debit Card during November, your name will be entered into a draw. You get an entry for every R50 you spend during November - and you'll earn double entries on Black Friday.

What prizes you can look forward to

Get ready to soak up the sun with your plus one in the Mother City. Enjoy a two-night stay with bed and breakfast at a luxury 5-star boutique hotel near Cape Town's bustling V&A Waterfront and the tranquil yacht marina. If you're from out of town, don't worry - you can relax from the time you get on the flight till you touch down. We've got you covered with a car for touring the city, including tickets to explore some sea life at the famous Two Oceans Aquarium. Plus, lunch and dinner on us with R5 000 spending money.

Enjoy magnificent views of nature from a 5-star boutique hotel in the Cape Winelands. Fly in from out of town, and tour the area in your private hired car. The prize includes two luxury nights with a breakfast spread as you indulge and soak up the tranquility of nature. Plus get some souvenirs to take home with your R5 000 spending money.

Unwind and rejuvenate at one of the luxury spas in your city. Spend the entire day in relaxation with your special someone and enjoy the scrumptious breakfast and the hearty lunch while you get pampered with several soothing massages.

Need a recap on the inspiration for our prizes? Then check out our Discovery Bank TV ad again.

Read more about the terms and conditions.

Discovery Life receives an innovation award for the Discovery Bank Integrator benefit

Discovery Life earned a podium finish for the Bank Integrator benefit in the 'Neobanks and Specialized Players' category at the Efma Customer Insight and Growth Banking Innovation awards in Paris recently.

The Discovery Bank Integrator is a world-first benefit that enables clients who engage in healthy financial behaviour to be rewarded with an upfront discount of up to 15% on their Discovery life insurance premiums.

Recognising the very best examples of banking innovations in multiple categories, the competition this year attracted 2 808 submissions from 658 institutions in 94 countries.

The lifetime benefits of behavioural banking

Discovery Life's head of technical marketing, Andrew Mc Currie said: "We are thrilled with this recognition. Through Discovery Bank - the world's first behavioural bank, and Vitality Money, a behaviour-based financial health programme - we can now give clients holistic advice on their financial health."

The Discovery Bank Integrator allows our clients to be rewarded with upfront life insurance premium discounts of up to 15% if they take out life insurance with Discovery Life and have a bank account with Discovery Bank. They also qualify for ongoing adjustments to their Discovery Life insurance premiums as they continue to engage in healthy financial behaviour.

How physical health affects financial health

The idea for the Discovery Bank Integrator stems from research that shows a link between financial and physical health. Simply put, when people are physically healthier, they tend to be financially healthier as well.

"By insuring people more accurately, we can reward clients better, for responsible financial behaviour regardless of their level of income," McCurrie added.

Discovery Life Limited. Registration number 1966/003901/06, is a registered long-term insurer, and an authorised financial services and registered credit provider, NCR Reg No. NCRCP3555. Discovery Bank Limited. Registration number 2015/408745/06. An authorised financial services and registered credit provider. FSP number 48657. NCR registration number NCRCP9997. Limits, terms and conditions apply.

Introducing the NEW Vitality Active Rewards with iPhone benefit

You might have seen our iPhone benefit trending in the last few weeks. This is because the amazing offer has people wanting to get on board, and get an iPhone on us. It sounds almost unbelievable - except that it is 100% legit. You can fund a new iPhone by meeting all of your weekly Vitality Active Rewards health, drive and money goals. It is the most affordable way to pay for your iPhone - with good behaviour.

The iPhone benefit is modelled on our successful Apple Watch benefit, with a few tweaks. "We brought you Apple Watch to help you exercise more and we saw a 34% increase in physical activity, so we wanted to take it further to bring you iPhone and encourage positive behaviour change in other aspects of your life like safer driving and healthier banking too, "said Discovery Chief Executive Adrian Gore.

The Apple Watch benefit had a phenomenal impact on physical activity around the world. An international study found that the concept of funding your watch by meeting exercise goals, increased activity levels by 34% for people with an Apple Watch, especially for members who were high-risk, with low physical activity levels. That's 4.8 extra days of activity per month, or two years of extra life. And a state-of-the-art watch you don't have to pay for if you stay moving and stay healthy.

Helping people bank healthier

Discovery Bank teamed up with Vitality and drew on this experience of how nudging behaviour can be a force for good, and applied it to getting people to change their money behaviours for the better. Seeing as the Discovery Bank app is like having a bank branch in the palm of your hand, the link between the bank and iPhone was a natural fit.

How it works

Qualifying Discovery Bank clients can activate the Vitality Active Rewards with iPhone benefit. You can choose from a variety of iPhones based on the type of account you have and the credit you have available. We'll help you fund your new iPhone based on your weekly Vitality Active Rewards exercise, drive and money goal achievement for 24 months.

Once you're a Discovery Bank client, with Vitality Money, get your new iPhone in these easy steps:

1. Activate Vitality Active Rewards on the latest Discovery app.
2. Go to the iPhone benefit on the Discovery Bank app to browse the iPhones you may qualify for and calculate your monthly cash back or repayments.
3. Visit an iStore near you to select your iPhone and complete your iPhone benefit activation.
4. Achieve your Vitality Active Rewards health, drive and money goals.

If you are a qualifying Discovery Bank client with only Vitality Money active, you can still activate the benefit and earn monthy cash back based on the number of Vitality Active Rewards money goals you achieve.  

Want to upgrade your phone? Upgrade your bank.

Download the Discovery Bank app to get started or find out more about how to upgrade to Discovery Bank. 

Read more here https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/iphone-benefit

Adrian visits the 947 Breakfast Club to break down behavioural banking

Adrian Gore, Discovery?s CEO popped in to the Primedia studios to chat to host Anele Mdoda and the 947 Breakfast Club listeners about behavioural banking. Watch here or read about the highlights of his visit below.

Adrian explained that behavioural banking is actually very simple: "If people manage their money well, they create value which Discovery Bank can then share back with them in better interest rates and rewards. It is much like our Vitality model. If you manage your money well, we reward you with great benefits and value. These are substantial benefits, too."

Anele agreed that this is such an important concept for every South African who has trouble managing their money. "I think we are looking for someone to help us change our relationship with money," she says.

Adrian shared some of the learnings about how the Vitality physical activity model has taught Discovery about rewarding good behaviour: "From [studying] the Vitality model, we know how to guide behaviour in a healthy way, through nudges. We will focus on the five key areas where people mismanage their money and offers so much value for addressing these, that people do change behaviour."

The five key behaviours to improve are:

• Managing your debt buy spending less than you earn
• Investing for the future, or retirement
• Paying off your property
• Having insurance for life's surprises, and
• Saving regularly to create sufficient savings for emergencies.

"As a bank client, and a Vitality client, you get substantial Vitality points and rewards, including higher rates on savings. Up to 7.5%, for instance, on 'lazy balances' or positive balances which earn no interest or very little interest. And, pay as little as prime -1 on borrowings," he said.

In addition, there are boosts to existing Vitality benefits like HealthyFood, HealthyGear and HealthyCare. "As an example, you can get up to 75% off healthy food at Woolworths, flight savings, etc. So we are stacking up the rewards you are used to, as well as offering this amazing rewards currency, Discovery Miles, which you can spend on just about anything," said Adrian.

Listeners were encouraged to share how they were managing their money against the five behaviours, and Adrian recognised their efforts by giving away two dream holidays!

• Watch the full video of the visit here and upgrade your bank now.

We've turned banking on its side, and made it sing with colour!

"Get on board!" as we usher in a new dawn of banking with the launch of our very first Discovery Bank ad campaign! The campaign premiered on Sunday, 1 September, and showcases the charm and charisma of various South Africans as they motivate you to get on board, and join Discovery Bank. A true testament to the innovative, trend-setting, alluring, and colourful personality that is the Discovery brand.

And because a bank like no other deserves a campaign like no other, the ad also features our Discovery ambassadors Caster Semenya, Wayde van Niekerk, Chad le Clos, and Lucas Redebe, with a special performance from the Ndlovu Youth Choir who just made it to the semi-finals of America's Got Talent!

Spearheaded by the "Get on Board" earworm, our campaign also introduces a series of humorous functional ads that promote the various unique Discovery Bank offerings. Furthermore, the campaign will live across numerous marketing communication channels such as billboards, radio, point-of-sale, digital, and social media, with the aim of driving consumers to visit the website and download the Discovery Bank app.

Watch, sing along, and share our new ad!

If you haven't yet, get on board to upgrade your bank to Discovery Bank now.

Our team is growing - welcome to the Discovery Bank leadership team, Francois Groepe

We're very excited to announce the latest addition to our team. Francois Groepe joined the Discovery Bank team on 1 August 2019 as our deputy CEO.

Before joining our team, Francois was deputy governor at the South African Reserve Bank, where he served on the Board of Directors for 14 years, seven of which as an executive overseeing various functions - including the Fintech Unit. Before this, he was the Group Managing Director and CEO of Media24.

Francois is 49 years old, a proud father of two sons, loves to braai and cook, with a personal collection of over 350 cooking books.

"We're pleased to welcome Francois who brings with him tremendous experience in both the corporate and regulatory environments. He is a seasoned executive and will be a valuable addition to our team." said Barry Hore, our Discovery Bank CEO.

This is what Francois had to say about his new appointment:

"The South African financial services landscape is undergoing significant structural change and Discovery Bank, which is the world's first behavioral bank, will be playing a key role in this changed landscape. I look forward to being part of this exciting transition."

Welcome to the team, Francois!

We are ready to roll out the next phase of onboarding clients

Good news - we've successfully completed our early onboarding period and are now ready to go public and scale our behavioural retail bank up in phases. Here's the latest.

For those wondering why the early onboarding phase took longer than expected, we found it vital to check and recheck due to the sophistication of our underlying systems and the complexity of the task.

Our digital bank has over 120 distinct and connected systems. In order to ensure that these systems integrate properly and create a seamless experience for our clients, we needed to get four structural factors in perfect working order:

1. The integration of full-scale digital banking functionality for clients within the Discovery ecosystem - in other words, we needed to ensure that all the different products and features "speak" to each other properly.
2. The systems and technology infrastructure - this is the backbone of all banking operations, after all.
3. The rewards architecture - so that our clients can earn and enjoy all their rewards from the get-go.
4. The migration of existing Discovery Card holders - to make sure that the clients in the first phase is experiencing an effortless transition to their new accounts.

Sophisticated structures beneath make for a seamless interface up top

Discovery Bank is mobile-first and deposit-led, and offers clients sophisticated lending capabilities from the get-go. As you can imagine, building these systems was uniquely complex, as the systems need to bring together all the functionalities you'd expect from a traditional bank and interweave this with advanced digital system capabilities, Vitality incentives and Discovery Health systems. These integrated systems took an incredible 1.5 million hours to build!

We're focused on dazzling our clients

But it was all worth it in the end. The insights that were revealed in the rigorous onboarding phase have put us in a strong position to deliver a uniquely disruptive behavioural banking solution with the aspiration that it takes no more than three clicks to complete any task.

A prime example of this user-friendly consumer experience is our proprietary Smart Onboarding process, where both existing Discovery Card clients and new clients without credit are fully onboarded, compliance-checked, and transacting immediately - all in under five minutes!

So, what is the next step in onboarding clients?

We plan to onboard 1 000 clients per day by the end of August 2019, and scale further from there. While our existing Discovery Card clients will get first priority for onboarding, we're super-excited about the substantial show of interest from non-Discovery clients, and promise to make contact with every one of you!

Discovery founder explains what it means to bank healthier

Watch Adrian Gore, founder and Chief Executive of Discovery Limited, describe how Discovery Bank will make a difference to clients. He explains how the unique behavioural banking model differs from that of both traditional banks and new fintech; it offers a 'third way' by means of a sophisticated, intuitive bank that profoundly affects people's behaviour, helps them manage their money better and get rewarded for it.

Gore also talks about the bank's BEE scheme explaining the legislative, social and moral imperatives behind it. He elaborates on the bank's broad-based approach towards inclusive economic growth, which he sees as key to building a safer, secure, prosperous South Africa, and contextualises the Bank within Discovery's commitment to invest R13 billion in the country over the next five years.

True digital banking - more than just a banking app

Banking may have moved forward digitally, but limited functionality and design means that you may still need to pop into a bank branch every now and then to do your day-to-day banking. A fully digitised bank like ours offers real-time solutions, flexibility, accuracy and innovation that is designed to bring you a seamless banking experience from the palm of your hand.

The Discovery Bank app is designed with you in mind. Packed with hundreds of features, you can go from signing up in minutes, personalising your accounts and cards, making payments using smart payment features like Samsung Pay, Garmin Pay and Fitbit Pay, viewing and managing your accounts from a single dashboard to managing your family's finances. You can even build your own statements and transaction history by grouping, sorting and filtering receipts and transactions.

It doesn't end there! With Vitality Money you can track your spend, set up budgets and financial goals and use our range of innovative money management tools - all while getting rewarded for getting financially healthier. That's just a sneak peak of what you can look forward to.

We are turning banking on its side and have put the power back in your hands - bank easily, securely and quickly, so you can spend more time doing the things you love.

Keep an eye on out for more updates and the latest Discovery Bank news.

Discovery Bank beta testing kicks off in November 2018

After six months of alpha testing, we are thrilled to have kicked off our beta testing and are inviting our Discovery staff members to join. We've designed a banking solution that lets people manage their money better - one that will leave everyone wondering why it was never done this way before.

We're also busy dialling up our operations in anticipation of bringing more of our clients across when Discovery Bank officially opens its doors to the public. Our main goal is to help people improve their financial health by changing the way they work with their money.

We've had an incredible response to the launch of the Discovery Bank so far, with thousands of people adding their name to our list to be first to join once we're up and running for everyone. Remember, the bank is open to all South Africans and you don't need a Discovery product to join, but obviously if you already are a client, you'll enjoy more rewards through integration.

We look forward to reaching out to all the people who left their details with us first, and will be sharing more info with them over the next few weeks and months. You can also stay tuned to this news site for the latest on how Discovery's helping SA bank healthier?

Do South Africans need to bank healthier?

Discovery Bank has done the research, and it boils down to this: If South Africans, as individuals and as a nation, want to move forward socio-economically - we desperately need to reduce our debt and foster a healthier savings culture.

There are now eight million more credit-active consumers than the total number of employed people in South Africa. And the problem is bigger than these figures reveal, because they don't account for informal debt like private loans.

By and large, South Africans are big borrowers and poor savers, but 5 financial behaviours can help people become financially healthier. Learn what they are, and how strong incentives to improve these behaviours can help South Africans become more money-savvy. Find a case for behavioural banking here.

How Vitality Money and boosted Vitality rewards work

In 2019, Discovery Bank - the world's first behavioural bank - will be available to the South African public. Simply put, it's a bank that will guide, motivate and reward you for getting financially healthier. If you're unsure how the bank will help you manage your money better and what Vitality Money is, we've put together a summary.

The article explains how your Vitality Money status is formed, how you can earn points to increase it, and what rewards you can expect for doing so. These include Dynamic Interest Rates, boosted Vitality rewards and the ability to earn more rewards for spending responsibly and hitting all your weekly Vitality Active Reward goals. We also give you a snapshot of our wide range of partners for Discovery Bank's boosted Vitality rewards. Learn more here.

The science behind Vitality Money

At Discovery, we take our research very seriously. We're committed to verified data collection, rigorous analysis, input from a range of fields for diverse and holistic perspectives, the best in thought leadership and behavioural theory, and long-term solutions that align with our shared-value model. That's why we put so much time and effort into white papers - we know that by understanding the challenges South Africans face, we'll be better placed to help solve them.

In this research report, ?Banking for a Stronger South Africa', we present relevant (and worrisome) statistics about the current financial health of South Africans. We then delve into behavioural theory and the human biases that impact how people understand and engage with their finances, showing how changing five simple behaviours can have a massive impact on financial health. Dig into the details here.