Our merchants deposited over ZAR 110 billion in cash into our vaults in FY 2023, evidencing the value they derive from our ability to digitalize this cash and immediately provide access to working capital. Supporting this, we lent over ZAR 1 billion in growth capital to these merchants over this period. We continue to innovate and integrate market-leading solutions, often successfully tweaking formal market solutions for the informal market. Kazang Pay Advance and Kazang Vaults are great examples of how we rolled out formal market solutions to the informal market that are being well-received. EasyPay Money Market was introduced in the formal market this year, demonstrating how our teams have been able to collaborate during the integration process.
Our new ATM Recycler is generating significant interest, and this business has been transferred to our Merchant Division, where it has been fully integrated into our Cash Connect proposition as an alternative to vaults for our merchant customers. In the Consumer Division, we extended over 850,000 microloans, or ZAR 1.3 billion, to our account holders and wrote just short of 125,000 new micro-insurance policies in FY 2023. These figures demonstrate real financial inclusion and Lesaka’s tangible impact on previously underserved community members. We not only continue to deepen our understanding of the needs of South Africa’s growing beneficiaries and the dynamics of this market, we have invested in data capabilities that allow us to better understand the impact that our enhanced products, distribution, and service offerings are having across our customer base.
As a result, we are on a completely different trajectory from where we were 12 months ago. To reiterate, our vision at Lesaka is to enable small merchants to compete and grow and to improve the lives of South Africa’s grant beneficiaries. We are seeing daily evidence across our business of the significant impact that we are having on the lives of our merchant and consumer customers. Lesaka is a leading player in the sectors in which we choose to participate, and we are on the brink of launching an exciting project utilizing our unique datasets and insights into the informal and township markets in South Africa. There is very little empirical data available at this end of the market, and what is readily available is often contradictory. We are hard at work with other thought leaders in this space and aim to bring consistency to definitions and market size in order to drive better understanding and servicing of this market segment.
With our extensive footprint in this market, we are targeting to release quarterly statistics combined with relevant thought leadership at our Q1 ’24 results. Lesaka has undergone a remarkable transformation since 2021. Our discussions at the Board and operation level and with our investors and other stakeholders are vastly different now, with a clear focus on growth and opportunity rather than turnaround and integration. Lesaka has delivered on the strategy as communicated to investors and achieved several significant milestones. As a group, the Lesaka of today is ready for the exciting growth stage of our journey. The results for FY 2023 have been excellent. We’ve exceeded our revenue guidance for the year primarily due to the stronger than expected growth in our Kazang VAS and Card business.
In our consumer division, whilst account growth was slower than forecast, revenue increased 12% year-on-year, which was very encouraging, especially considering the restructuring process was in full swing for the majority of the 12-month period. At an EBITDA level, our results were near the midpoint of our guidance, despite the challenging operating environment. The year-on-year growth rates are skewed by the inclusion of the Connect Group for a full year, but I’m hugely encouraged by the continued improvement in our quarterly performance, with each quarter this year reflecting an increase in revenue and EBITDA. We are especially proud of the turnaround in operating income, which has improved from a loss of ZAR 611 million in FY 2022 to a loss of ZAR 275 million for FY 2023.
Adjusting for the amortization of acquired intangibles and for the impairment of our UEPS business, which in aggregate account for an approximately ZAR 400 million charge to the income statement, we have delivered in excess of a ZAR 670 million improvement to operating income over the year. And Naeem will address the Q4 results in detail later in the presentation. With that, I would like to hand over to Steve to take you through the excellent performance of our Merchant Division.
Steve Heilbron: We’ve just completed our first full year as the Lesaka Group, and it’s been both challenging and rewarding successfully integrating the Kazang and the Connect businesses into the wider organization. Seldom do all aspects of an acquisition work as planned, but the way in which the teams have worked together and adapted to the changes has been remarkable. At the time of the acquisition, we said there was a close alignment of culture and values between the leadership teams, which has underpinned the transition and has seen us through a difficult trading environment in South Africa. The performance of Kazang and Connect have continually surpassed base case assumptions, and the Lesaka shareholders have received value for their investment, particularly given the increasingly challenging operating environment that Chris spoke about earlier.
