The man behind Standard Bank Connect

Standard Bank Connect head Kartik Mistry has had an impressive career spanning nearly 20 years in banking, telecoms, and technology companies and projects.

The mobile virtual network operator was launched as Standard Bank Mobile in 2018, which remained its name up to a rebranding last year.

The MVNO was originally headed up by experienced telecoms executive Steve Bailey, the former CEO of Virgin Mobile and Ignition Group’s MVNO enabler MVNX.

After Bailey’s departure in May 2022, Mistry was identified as his ideal replacement and took up the mantle as Standard Bank Mobile head in October 2022.

He has overseen several fundamental changes at the MVNO in the past two and a half years.

Perhaps the biggest was switching from Cell C to MTN as Standard Bank’s wholesale provider for its mobile customers.

Announced in June 2024, the transition coincided with Standard Bank Mobile’s rebranding to Standard Bank Connect.

Mistry is an expert in go-to-market product development and has driven an overhaul in Standard Bank Connect products and services — including revamped data bundles and voice packages, device contracts, and the addition of eSIM support.

He has around 20 years of experience in banking, telecoms, and technology.

After obtaining a BSc degree in IT management from Unisa and an MBA from GIBS, Mistry began his professional career with a four-and-half-year stint at Standard Bank in 2005.

He was initially appointed as a business analyst before being promoted to costing and business process manager.

In September 2009, Mistry moved to FNB, where he started out as a strategic projects manager.

In 2011, he was promoted to head FNB’s smart devices division and in 2014, he was appointed as FNB executive for retail and distribution.

In this position, he was responsible for managing the bank’s retail strategies for its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) FNB Connect, smart devices, and eBucks loyalty programme.

A big change came in 2017 when Mistry temporarily swapped out the banking industry for telecoms and headed to Rain to serve as its chief operating officer. He would continue to work in that role until 2020.

During his time at South Africa’s youngest mobile network, he led Rain’s go-to-market strategy, which included building its brand, product, operating strategy, and structures.

During his tenure, Rain launched highly popular and well-priced uncapped 4G products and became the first firm to offer fixed-5G consumer services.

He also oversaw, managed, and scaled operational growth, with Rain’s staff exploding from 10 to 250 employees during his three years as CEO.

After leaving Rain in July 2020, he undertook several entrepreneurial projects — including founding AI-focused projects Tessarae and Hamba.

Return to Standard Bank

The corporate world came knocking again in 2022 when Standard Bank sought a new executive to develop and implement a winning product, sales, distribution, and technology strategy for its mobile division.

Mistry told TechCentral the bank was looking for a “hybrid-type personality” who understood both banking and the telecoms.

He explained the name change was in part because customers were getting confused between the use of “mobile” when referring to the Standard Bank app or digital banking channel but also to infer a link between the cellular and banking offerings.

The transition away from MTN was partially due to Standard Bank Mobile having less control over its MVNO technology stack, with a lot of the capabilities sitting with an aggregator between the bank and Cell C.

“Standard Bank Mobile was really only involved in the sales, marketing, and some product development,” he said. “We wanted to bypass the middleman and get straight to MTN.”

The more direct link with its roaming partner has necessitated that Standard Bank Connect bring the MVNO technology stack in-house.

As of June 2024, Standard Bank Connect’s customer base stood at 300,000 users.

Mistry explained that the current customer base consists primarily of tech-savvy individuals and that its main target market is middle-income to high-income earners.

Below are images of some of the key products and developments that Mistry was involved in during his careers at FNB and Rain.