South African digital bank TymeBank launches medical insurance product – TymeHealth

South African digital bank, TymeBank, in conjunction with the National HealthCare Group, has launched a new medical insurance product named TymeHealth .

The Patrice Motsepe-linked bank aims to tap into the market not covered by medical schemes. The product comes in three different plans – costing R139, R299 and R399 per month, and it covers General Practitioner visits.

Depending on the plan chosen, the medical insurance product covers blood tests, X-rays, basic dentistry, ambulance services and acute medicines at varying levels. The higher-priced plans also offer coverage for specialist visits, chronic medication and basic optometry, among other things.

According to both companies, the primary target market for TymeHealth is people who have some form of income but have no private healthcare coverage. Medical scheme members are not expected to ditch their medical aid for this product as it does not cover hospitalisation.

“The target market is anyone in this country that has no prospect of ever joining normal medical aid. And there’s roughly 20 million of them,” said Dr Reinder Nauta, the executive chair of National HealthCare Group.

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When asked why the bank is diversifying into healthcare, the CEO Tauriq Keraan said, “At TymeBank, we are building a ubiquitous customer engagement platform. We are leading that process with a bank relationship. But it’s always been our vision, and I’ve always communicated that off the back of that, we will make use of our trusted relationship with customers to meet their broader financial services needs.’

He also said that though banking was always the beginning of the journey for TymeBank, the bank’s goal was to diversify its product offering continuously. Providing healthcare for the majority of the population that cannot afford medical aid was always an opportunity worth exploring

Keraan said in the few weeks that TymeHealth has been live on the bank’s app, about 75% of people that applied said they earned less than R10 000 a month. About 15% said they earned between R10 000 and R40 000 month and another 10% earned more than R40 000.

Some weeks ago, the digital bank launched a credit card in partnership with RCS. The bank already has a buy-now-pay-later credit offering called MoreTyme. It also has a salary advance offering called TymeAdvance.

The bank also announced recently that it was expanding to the Philippines after securing $109 million from new investors in the UK and Philippines.