{"id":864184,"date":"2026-06-22T09:24:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T07:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=864184"},"modified":"2026-06-22T09:24:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T07:24:38","slug":"good-news-for-standard-bank-customers-in-south-africa-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/864184\/good-news-for-standard-bank-customers-in-south-africa-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for Standard Bank customers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Standard Bank says that should the United States-Iran peace deal hold, confidence should return to markets in the second half of the year, which should boost client sentiment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to halt the war for sixty days and open the Strait of Hormuz, allowing the flow of around 20% of the world’s oil supply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war threw South Africa from a somewhat optimistic environment into chaos, with fuel price increases driving higher inflation and prompting an interest rate hike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standard Bank said the operating environment has become more complex, with geopolitical tensions, higher energy prices, and trade-policy uncertainty weighing on global growth and inflation expectations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across its countries of operation, macroeconomic conditions varied. “While inflation was relatively contained across several markets, the outlook became less benign,” it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standard Bank said that the uncertainty brought by the Middle East conflict, as well as inflation and monetary policy actions, weighed on clients’ confidence to transact, invest, and borrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Should the recent positive developments hold, we would expect confidence and momentum to return in the second half of the year,” the group said <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank added that the domestic backdrop has continued to be supported by ongoing structural reform momentum, improved fiscal trajectory and resilient terms of trade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The constructive backdrop was duly noted by credit rating agencies, with South Africa now having received upgrades from Fitch and S&P, while Moody’s changed its outlook to positive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First five months of the year<\/h2>\n\n\n
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In the five months ending 31 May 2025, Standard Bank said it recorded a resilient performance despite an uncertain global operating environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that it benefited from its scale and diversification, with earnings growth underpinned by the ongoing franchise momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This drove balance sheet and revenue growth, and a disciplined approach to costs and credit risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balance sheet growth was also supported by strong growth in Investment Banking and increased disbursements in Business and Commercial Banking, primarily in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Personal and Private Banking portfolio saw moderate growth, with the home loans portfolio continuing to grow at low single digits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current accounts and term deposits recorded strong growth, in line with the group’s transactional client franchise focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group added that income growth was also supported by balance sheet growth, increased client activity, and an expanded client base, driving period-over-period transactional activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This was partly offset by the negative endowment impact of lower average interest rates across the portfolio, and ongoing competitive pricing pressures in the home loans portfolio,” it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Trading revenue growth was supported by periods of elevated market volatility and market-making opportunities, particularly in the first quarter of the year.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group noted that it maintained cost discipline while absorbing increased costs associated with business activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group is continuing to invest in growing its client franchise while optimising its physical infrastructure. It added that cost growth was broadly in line with revenue growth on a period-on-period basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credit impairment charges were also reduced despite an increase in forward-looking provisions, reflecting the weakening macroeconomic outlook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower credit impairment charges, combined with a growing balance sheet, also resulted in a lower credit loss ratio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group added that strong earnings growth momentum by the Insurance & Asset Management business in 2025 continued into 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to improved life risk experience, continued good persistency levels, and good growth in assets under management in South Africa and Nigeria, it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As expected, the group’s earnings growth in 5M26 moderated relative to the 12% recorded in the first quarter of the year,” it said.

“The Africa Regions portfolio continued to benefit from its diversity. A softer performance in the South & Central Region was more than offset by growth in the West and East Africa portfolios.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that the continuing growth in the South African franchise was underpinned by continued
positive momentum in the business and competitive client offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group will report its financial results for the six months to 30 June 2026, on 13 August 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standard Bank says that a peace deal between the United States and Iran should make life easier for clients in the second half of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":856846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[499],"class_list":["post-864184","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\/864184","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=864184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864203,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864184\/revisions\/864203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}