Fidelity, which harbours ambitions of taking the group public following years of sustained growth, is beefing up the capabilities of its key cash-solutions business to better ward off the pestilence of cash-in-transit attacks.The group, which employs more than 50,000 people — making it one of South Africa’s largest private-sector employers — already holds a dominant position in the cash-solutions market in the country, and now holds a market share of nearly 80% of the sector.Armed with a fleet of nearly 1,200 armoured vehicles servicing 942 routes daily, the group has spent more money to maintain its stranglehold on the cash-solutions industry.Fidelity group CEO Wahl Bartmann said cash-in-transit crime remains one of South Africa’s most organised and high-impact threats, although great strides have been made to curb it.To this end, the group has deployed new trucks to move the roughly R250bn in cash the company moves around the country annually. The new vehicles come kitted with a reinforced unit that reduces body roll and improves resistance to side-impact ramming attacks. It also provides enhanced resistance against high-powered firearms.Bartmann said this investment was necessary to better service its clientele, which spans the whole country.“In South Africa, cash remains a vital enabler of daily life. It powers businesses, supports communities and drives economic participation across both the formal and informal sectors,” he said.“Our continued investment in advanced fleet capability, operational intelligence and integrated security infrastructure reflects our commitment to staying ahead of evolving threats while ensuring the resilience and continuity of cash movement across the country.”In South Africa, cash remains a vital enabler of daily life. It powers businesses, supports communities and drives economic participation across both the formal and informal sectors— Wahl Bartmann, Fidelity group CEO Fidelity, founded by Bartmann’s father, Mick, more than six decades ago, has grown to be the country’s largest integrated security-solutions provider, with operations spanning home and business security to firefighting.Its cash-solutions business, however, remains its most visible proposition — with the group not shy to litigate to guard its market share. The company last month moved to protect its cash-in-transit trade secrets from a former senior employee it suspected of planning to join a rival, iZi Cash, successfully interdicting the move. iZi Cash has been operating and providing cash management and logistics services for a decade. The South African Reserve Bank, meanwhile, has set in motion the biggest reforms in South Africa’s payment ecosystem in a generation, as it pushes to reduce the usage of cash in the country.Under the Bank’s 2030 strategy, which elevates the modernisation of payments to a core strategic pillar alongside price and financial stability, it estimates that faster, cheaper digital payments could trim the economy’s R30bn annual cash-management cost and widen access for underserved households and businesses.The Bank is setting its sights on propelling the country’s national payment system to the big league among emerging markets and sweeping cash to the sidelines. But this will not be an easy task, as cash preference is entrenched in many parts of the country, particularly the informal economy, which is said to be worth R900bn annually.Fidelity has also been making investments in its other businesses, particularly its firefighting capabilities, which the group has identified as a key growth area. The group’s firefighting unit, Fidelity SecureFire, operates a tiered national response model, consisting of a fleet of 600 first-responder teams. The fledgling unit has successfully rolled out operations across all major metropolitan areas in South Africa while expanding into key regional markets, including Polokwane, Richards Bay, Nelspruit, Rustenburg, Pietermaritzburg, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Hermanus and Worcester.Fidelity SecureFire last year fended off a legal challenge by the City of Tshwane to declare its services unlawful, with the North Gauteng High Court finding that the law does not prohibit private companies from rendering firefighting services to their own clients under contract.Bloomberg reported in November that Fidelity had secured the services of Absa, Deutsche Bank, Nedbank and Standard Bank to work on a plan to bring the company to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange — in a move that could see the group valued at more than R7bn.In the clearest yet sign that the company is inching closer to going public, it has moved to amend its website to incorporate features that resemble those of JSE-listed companies, including the Stock Exchange News Service (SENS). Business Times