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Riaan Stassen

Banker and executive

By South African Index Editorial Desk · Published

Portrait of Riaan Stassen.
Photograph: Trevor Samson / Business Day · Source · Copyright retained by source publication. Resized and converted to WebP for this site.

Riaan Stassen was the early Capitec executive most closely associated with building the bank’s operating model after its establishment. Capitec’s own reporting described him as the person who created the bank “as we know it today”. [1][2]

Biography

Stassen led Capitec after Michiel le Roux’s initial period as chief executive. The company’s 2010 annual report presents him as the executive who shaped the bank’s mature operating model. [1]

Under his leadership Capitec emphasised longer branch hours, simplified products and wider access. A company twentieth-anniversary account describes early experiments such as a mobile bank set up in a Toyota Tazz in 2005. [2]

Capitec’s board history distinguishes Stassen’s role from that of Le Roux, who served as chief executive until 2004. Stassen is therefore best described as a major company builder rather than the sole founder of Capitec. [3][1]

Key contributions

Led the development of Capitec’s simplified, access-focused retail-banking model. [1][2]

Expanded the bank during the period after the founding chief executive stepped down. [3]

Career timeline

  1. Became the central operating leader after Michiel le Roux’s period as chief executive ended. [3]

  2. Oversaw experiments to make banking more accessible, including a mobile-bank concept. [2]

  3. Capitec’s annual report described him as the man who created Capitec Bank as it was then known. [1]

Associated organisations

Sources

  1. Capitec Bank Holdings, Integrated Annual Report 2010, 2010-02-28. Original source. Accessed 2026-09-25. ↩
  2. Capitec Bank, From 25 000 to 15 million clients: 20 years of Capitec Bank, 2021-03-01. Original source. Accessed 2026-09-25. ↩
  3. Capitec Bank Holdings, Integrated Annual Report 2019, 2019-02-28. Original source. Accessed 2026-09-25. ↩