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Discovery posted strong unaudited interim results for the six months to December 2025, with normalised operating profit rising 24 percent to R8.9 billion, headline earnings up 29 percent to R5.69 billion, and normalised headline earnings climbing 27 percent to R5.75 billion. Return on equity reached 17.4 percent. New business annual premium income grew 12 percent to R14 billion and embedded value rose to R135.8 billion.
Gore described the first half as "an excellent, strong, and robust period for our group," saying the results reflect disciplined execution across the business.
Discovery Bank was the standout story. The digital lender posted normalised profit from operations of R75 million, compared with a loss of R145 million in the prior period, while operating profit before new business acquisition costs rose to R319 million from R69 million. Clients grew 28 percent to 1.4 million, accounts rose 29 percent to 3.37 million, retail deposits grew 21 percent, advances increased 42 percent, and non-interest revenue climbed 39 percent. The bank is adding approximately 1,500 new customers daily.
Notably, close to 70 percent of new bank clients are not existing Discovery members, suggesting the platform is expanding its reach well beyond the group's traditional base. Gore said revenue per client rises as customers deepen their engagement over time, while the digital platform's operating leverage drives costs per client down, a dynamic that improves profitability as scale increases. The bank's next phase involves evolving into what Discovery calls a "super bank," integrating health, insurance, and investment products into a single digital interface.
Discovery Health delivered 5 percent operating profit growth to R2.13 billion, a figure that would have been roughly 11 percent had the business not absorbed a R125 million write-off stemming from a pharmacy claims-processing error in 2025 affecting more than 16,000 medical scheme members. After initially attempting to recover overpaid Above Threshold Benefit claims, Discovery reversed course under public and regulatory pressure and absorbed the cost itself. New business annual premium income in the health division still grew 16 percent to R5.45 billion, and lives under administration reached 3.86 million.
Discovery Life posted operating profit growth of 15 percent to R3.09 billion, supported by favourable mortality experience and the ongoing impact of its Vitality behavioural model. Its return on embedded value reached 31 percent. Discovery Insure also had a strong period, with operating profit up 34 percent to R546 million and margins improving to 15.2 percent. Discovery Invest grew operating profit 1 percent to R984 million, though Gore noted that an R87 million asset-liability matching loss from interest-rate movements suppressed the headline figure. Stripping that out, underlying growth would have been closer to 21 percent.
Running through all of it is the Vitality shared-value model, which Gore described as generating measurable "alpha" by aligning company and client incentives to improve health, driving and financial behaviour. Discovery's internal analysis shows members of its medical scheme pay approximately 17.7 percent less per unit of healthcare benefit compared with comparable systems, a figure Gore attributes directly to the model's impact.
Underpinning the next growth phase is artificial intelligence. Discovery has launched Vitality AI in partnership with Google, a platform designed to enable what Gore called hyper-personalised engagement. Its Personal Health Pathways tool has already activated more than 575,000 members in preventative health actions, with similar tools rolling out across insurance, banking and wellness.
"Discovery has delivered a strong performance during this period," Gore said, adding the group continues to move ahead of its five-year growth targets.
