{"id":830251,"date":"2025-07-02T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=830251"},"modified":"2025-09-15T13:41:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T11:41:42","slug":"south-africas-biggest-bank-just-lost-out-to-its-biggest-rival-and-a-surprise-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/830251\/south-africas-biggest-bank-just-lost-out-to-its-biggest-rival-and-a-surprise-contender\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s biggest bank just lost out to its top rival – and a surprise contender"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Standard Bank was ranked as the biggest bank in the country in 2025, widening its lead over FirstRand, which ranked second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in terms of overall performance, South Africa’s biggest bank dropped to third in the local rankings, beaten out by FirstRand and a surprise fast-riser, Investec.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is according to The Banker’s annual ranking of the world’s top 1000 banks, which included six local banks in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Banker’s ‘biggest bank’ ranking focuses on Tier 1 Capital, which represents a bank’s core capital, seen as the most reliable and stable source of funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tier 1 Capital is a key measure of a bank’s financial health and ability to withstand losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a significant turnaround from the 2024 rankings (which focused on FY2023), all of South Africa’s banks showed solid growth in Tier 1 Capital in 2025 (focused on FY2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the top six banks listed, Tier 1 Capital grew by 10% to $43.5 billion in 2024, following a 2% decline the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standard Bank maintained its number one position, which is has held onto for the last decade, with FirstRand close behind in second\u2014a position it has also long held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of T1 Capital, the two rivals hold a solid lead over the other banks, with only Absa (consistently ranked third) coming close to moving up on two occasions in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Banker noted that South Africa’s banks seemingly “brushed aside” persistent domestic challenges to demonstrate remarkable growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Africa\u2019s largest economy remained subdued in 2024, despite improvements in electricity supply and some easing of operating pressures,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Even so, the country\u2019s major banks bucked these conditions and continued on a steady growth path, with almost all lenders expanding their balance sheets and forging new growth opportunities.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Standard Bank maintained its position as the country’s number one, Capitec showed the largest growth in T1 Capital, up 20.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was one of the highest growth rates in Africa, The Banker noted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investec also showed remarkable growth with T1 Capital up 12.2% year-on-year. However, the real champion was FirstRand, which was the only other bank to show double-digit growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FirstRand’s T1 Capital grew by almost 15% year-on-year, notable because it comes off a much higher base. In nominal terms, the bank added over $1.4 billion in T1 Capital over the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SA #<\/strong><\/th>Global<\/strong><\/th>Bank<\/strong><\/th>2024 T1C<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>
($m)<\/strong><\/th>		2025 T1C<\/strong>
($m)<\/strong><\/th>		Change<\/strong><\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
1<\/td>155<\/td>Standard Bank<\/td>11,923<\/td>13,001<\/td>+9.0%<\/td><\/tr>
2<\/td>175<\/td>FirstRand<\/td>9,669<\/td>11,107<\/td>+14.9%<\/td><\/tr>
3<\/td>212<\/td>Absa<\/td>7,912<\/td>8,456<\/td>+6.9%<\/td><\/tr>
4<\/td>281<\/td>Nedbank<\/td>5,620<\/td>5,856<\/td>+4.2%<\/td><\/tr>
5<\/td>501<\/td>Investec<\/td>2,301<\/td>2,582<\/td>+12.2%<\/td><\/tr>
6<\/td>519<\/td>Capitec<\/td>2,041<\/td>2,463<\/td>+20.7%<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td><\/td>Total<\/strong><\/td>39,466<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>43,465<\/td>+10.1%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>
Source: The Banker<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Performance rankings for 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On top of the Tier 1 Capital indicator that informs the main ranking, The Banker has indicators to assess overall performance among banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These include more varied metrics like growth, profitability, operational efficiency and asset quality, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at performance, FirstRand emerged as the best-performing bank in the country overall, climbing over last year’s number one, Standard Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Standard Bank dropped to third place in the 2025 review, with Investec’s standout performance pushing it into second place from fifth in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Investec\u2019s success stems from its leading positions in asset quality and return on risk, as well as second-place finishes in profitability and growth,” The Banker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FirstRand and Investec ranked first and second in terms of growth, profitability, and flipped on return on risk. Standard Bank still led in operational efficiency and liquidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted that The Banker’s performance rankings focus on the Top 5 biggest banks and thus did not include Capitec in the published review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it did note that Capitec posted double-digit gains in pre-tax profitability of 37.6%, which was significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of total asset growth, Capitec also leads the way with 19.8%\u2014far higher than the 10% and 9% growth seen by Absa and Investec, and even higher than the 7.4% and 5.4% seen by FirstRand and Standard Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec was also noted for having the second highest return on assets in Africa, recording a 5.8% RoA, below only Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust Bank at 6.9%<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the top local bank in each indicator:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Performance Indicator<\/strong><\/td>Top Bank<\/strong><\/td>Second<\/strong><\/td>Third<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Growth<\/td>FirstRand<\/td>Investec<\/td>Absa<\/td><\/tr>
Profitability<\/td>FirstRand<\/td>Investec<\/td>Standard Bank<\/td><\/tr>
Operational Efficiency<\/td>Standard Bank<\/td>Absa<\/td>Investec<\/td><\/tr>
Asset Quality<\/td>Investec<\/td>Nedbank<\/td>FirstRand<\/td><\/tr>
Return on Risk<\/td>Investec<\/td>FirstRand<\/td>Nedbank<\/td><\/tr>
Liquidity<\/td>Standard Bank<\/td>Absa<\/td>FirstRand<\/td><\/tr>
Soundness<\/td>FirstRand<\/td>Standard Bank<\/td>Investec<\/td><\/tr>
Leverage<\/td>FirstRand<\/td>Absa<\/td>Standard Bank<\/td><\/tr>
Overall<\/strong><\/td>FirstRand<\/strong><\/td>Investec<\/strong><\/td>Standard Bank<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Banker has published its annual ranking of the world’s top 1000 banks, including six major South African banks, and a fierce battle for the top spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":791109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[29,1798,4088,1498,1799,499,7283],"class_list":["post-830251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-absa","tag-capitec","tag-firstrand","tag-investec","tag-nedbank","tag-standard-bank","tag-the-banker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830251"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837588,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830251\/revisions\/837588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}