How much you would have if you invested R10,000 into Standard Bank, Capitec, Absa and more one year ago

South Africa’s biggest banks experienced a mixed year when it comes to valuations, with Capitec and Nedbank returning the most to investors, while Investec saw a decline.

Looking exclusively at share price growth since 9 January 2024, Capitec has seen its share price jump by 58.55% over the last year.

The group has performed well financially, with its headline earnings and headline earnings per share up 36% to R6.4 billion and 5,544 cents per share, respectively, in the 6 months ended 31 August 2024.

Established in 2001, Capitec has become South Africa’s largest bank by customer numbers, with over 23 million active customers.

From 2004 to 2024, the group’s share price grew by almost 35,000%.

The group has expanded from its unsecured lending service to a fully-fledged financial services provider, offering personal and business banking and its own under-written insurance service.

The only recent spanner in the works for the group was a R56 million fine by the Prudential Authority due to Capitec’s non-compliance with certain provisions of the Finance Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), but this has little-to-no effect on the group’s share price.

The bank with the second-best returns over the last year has been Nedbank, which saw its share price rise by 32.42%.

The group’s most recent results for the first half of 2024 showed that headline earnings increased by 8% to R7.9 billion.

The growth comes despite newly-appointed Nedbank CEO Jason Quinn warning that the operating environment was especially challenging and was characterised by high interest rates, persistent inflation, and fears surrounding South Africa’s May 29 elections.

Nedbank was armed with a war chest of R12 billion in excess capital sitting on its books by the end of June.

The group plans to reduce its dependence on South Africa and nearly quadruple its profit from other African markets over the next decade.

South Africa’s fourth-largest lender by assets plans to build scale in booming sectors such as natural resources and renewable energy.

The third-best performing bank has been Absa, with its share price rising by 23.08% over the last year.

This comes despite a 5% drop in the group’s headline earnings per share in the first half of 2024 to 1,228.4 cents.

Amid the poor performance CEO Arrie Rautenbach was let go by the group, while Charles Russon will become Interim CEO.

Russon recently announced that the bank will reduce its number of units to four from the current five in a bid to unlock growth. This led to a substantial rise in the group’s share price.

In fourth place, is South Africa’s second-largest bank by assets, FirstRand, which saw its share price increase by 6.30%.

In its most recent financials for the year ended 30 June 2024, FirstRand noted headline earnings per share also increased by a measly 4% to 679 cents per share.

The group raised a R3.0 billion accounting provision due to a UK motor commission review, which impacted its results during the period.

South Africa’s largest bank by assets, Standard Bank, came fifth, with only 6.02% share price growth over the last year.

In a trading statement for the first ten months of 2024, Standard Bank said that its underlying operational and financial trends were robust.

The group noted that its overall headline earnings grew by low-to-mid single digits in rand terms and by mid-teens on a constant currency basis from the same period in 2023.

“Currency devaluations in various countries in which the group operates on the African continent, together with, more recently, the stronger ZAR, continued to dilute the group’s performance in ZAR,” said Standard Bank.

The worst performer across South Africa’s largest listed banks last year was Investec, which saw its share price decrease by 1.26%.

“The group delivered a solid performance in the first half of the 2025 financial year in an evolving environment,” said Investec CEO Fani Titi.

“Adjusted operating profit grew 7.6% to £475 million, demonstrating continued momentum from our differentiated client franchises. We are pleased to report an ROE of 13.9%, which is putting us on track to achieve the Group’s full-year ROE guidance.

“The group has maintained strong capital and liquidity levels, positioning us well to support our clients and pursue disciplined growth in an improving operating environment.”

The group noted that it benefitted from higher interest rates in South Africa and the UK.

That said, basic earnings per share declined by 47.6%, while headline earnings per share dropped by 0.5%.

Nevertheless, the group declared a record interim dividend per share of 16.5 pence per share.

How much R10,000 would get you at South Africa’s largest listed banks can be found below:

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