{"id":856340,"date":"2026-04-08T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=856340"},"modified":"2026-04-08T16:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:15:19","slug":"bad-news-for-standard-bank-customers-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/856340\/bad-news-for-standard-bank-customers-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad news for Standard Bank customers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Standard Bank says it detected unauthorised access to its clients’ personal information, which included names and ID numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 23 March, Standard Bank alerted its customers about an incident where unauthorised access to some personal information was detected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a later update, the bank noted that its banking systems were not impacted and remain secure and operational. The bank worked with external experts to investigate the leak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the bank said that the specific information involved may differ from person to person, the affected information involved includes names, ID numbers and company registration numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank, which is South Africa’s largest by assets under management, said it is strengthening controls and enhancing monitoring in line with industry best practice to safeguard information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the incident was reported to regulatory authorities, the bank provided a series of tips to help mitigate fraud risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It warned that the risk from the data leak is that someone may impersonate you or contact you fraudulently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could include emails, messages or calls that appear genuine, or attempt to use your details without permission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this in mind, the bank recommended updating banking passwords, enabling digital banking platforms, not sharing personal information when requested and using strong passwords. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also recommended registering with the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service for protective registration, which is a free service that prevents anyone from trying to apply for banking services with your ID number. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other tips include verifying any unexpected emails, SMS, or calls requesting sensitive information via trusted banking channels, and avoiding clicking on suspicious links or unfamiliar website URLs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We want to reassure you that protecting your privacy and personal information remains our highest priority,” said the Big Four bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we discover that any additional information was affected, we will provide further updates on our website or directly to you.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liberty also affected <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Standard Bank subsidiary Liberty was also hit by a data breach in March, resulting from unauthorised third-party access to select data systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yuresh Maharaj, CEO of Insurance and Asset Management at Standard Bank, said that Liberty’s services were unaffected, fully operational and available to all clients, advisers and employees following the breach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLiberty recently detected unauthorised access to your personal information. Your policies and investments remain secure, and our services are running normally,\u201d it said in a note to clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standard Bank took full control of Liberty four years ago. The bank previously held a 53.6% stake in the asset manager and insurer, but decided to acquire the remaining shares it did not already own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acquiring full control of Liberty was aimed at fully integrating the bank\u2019s insurance and asset management divisions, which would create a more efficient group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent technological issues for Standard Bank are not new, with the latest breach joining a growing list of technological problems that have hit the Big Four bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank experienced severe IT system outages across its operations for 2 months in 2022. This led to the resignation of its then chief engineering officer, Alpheus Mangale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank\u2019s IT struggles also occurred late last year, when an outage prevented customers from accessing the full functionality of its online and mobile banking channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenges were due to an issue reported by software provider Sage, which identified an issue with the feeds it received from Standard Bank. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standard Bank has given further insights into a data breach it suffered in March, with sensitive customer information released. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":856347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[499],"class_list":["post-856340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-standard-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856340","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856340"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856361,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856340\/revisions\/856361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}