Crosby Mkhwanazi

There’s no other corporate and investment bank (CIB) on the continent that can match the scale of Standard Bank’s – it brought in R63.5 billion last year from its clients in 20 African countries. Group headline earnings were up 27% to R42.9 billion, and return on equity reached 18.8%. It now has 19.5 million customers in its four businesses: person and private banking, business and commercial banking, an corporate and investment banking.

But just like any other bank, it’s seized with an ongoing IT modernisation programme of reducing its legacy footprint while continuing to improve on the experience it offers its customers. Pete Redshaw, vice-president analyst for the banking industry at Gartner, says in his experience, a bank’s modernisation strategy is often “muddled”. Speaking generally, and not referring to Standard Bank in particular, he says many banks “throw a lot of technology up against the wall, and see what sticks, and what works and what doesn’t”.