Purpose and strategy

Our belief in Africa is rooted in the vast possibilities and opportunities it presents. We navigate these opportunities with integrated thinking, aligning our purpose and strategic approach to emerging trends, ensuring that the execution of our strategy creates enduring value.

Our Purpose

Africa is our home; we drive her growth.

We live by our purpose to drive sustainable, inclusive growth in Africa through our position as the leading financial services organisation on the continent.

To do this, we focus on 3 strategic priorities:

Transform client experience
Execute with excellence
Drive sustainable growth and value

Delivering on our purpose

News

14 November 2023

Africa’s continental integration offers opportunities for cross-border expansion

The Africa of 2023 is a continent that is embracing new opportunities. As it moves to exploit commonalities existing between neighbours, the advantages of intra-Africa trade are taking cooperation between countries to new levels. Trade agreements are gathering momentum, and traditional trade barriers are crumbling.

News

13 November 2023

Standard Bank wins prestigious international wealth awards

Standard Bank Wealth and Investment was the recipient of two awards in this year’s Professional Wealth Management (PWM) Global Private Bank Awards.

News

10 November 2023

Responding to the exponential growth of renewable energy means financial institutions must adopt a new ‘financial services industry’ approach

By Deerosh Maharaj – Head of Power & Sustainable Solutions, Natural Resources

Our strategic priorities

Our strategic priorities create the framework within which we work to deliver on our purpose. Everything we do will further these three priorities and we have set targets against which we track our progress.

Transform client experience

We will transform client experience using digital technology, amplified by the human touch. We aim to understand our clients as deeply and empathetically as we can, and then use our human skill and digital capabilities to help meet their needs and enable them to achieve their goals.

Execute with excellence

We will execute with excellence, delivering innovative and cost-effective products and services ourselves and in partnership with others.

Drive sustainable growth and value

We strive to deliver increasingly attractive returns to our shareholders and continued net positive impact in the economies and societies in which we operate.

Our strategic targets

To achieve our strategic priorities, we must take the necessary steps to meet our 2025 targets.

Transform client experience

2025 target:
Compound average per annum, 7% - 9%

Execute with excellence

2025 target:
Cost-to-income ratio, approaching 50%

Drive sustainable growth and value

2025 target:
ROE in our target range, 17% - 20%

Our Values

Serving our customers

We do everything in our power to ensure that we provide our customers with the products, services and solutions to suit their needs.

Growing our people

We encourage and help our people to develop to their full potential and measure our leaders on how well they grow and challenge the people they lead.

Delivering to our shareholders

We understand that we earn the right to exist by providing appropriate long-term returns to our shareholders. We strive to meet our targets and commitments.

Being proactive

We strive to stay ahead by anticipating rather than reacting, but our actions are always carefully considered.

Working in teams

We, and all aspects of our work, are interdependent. We appreciate that, as teams, we can achieve much greater things, and we value teams within and across the group.

Respecting each other

We have the highest regard for human dignity. We respect each other and what we stand for and recognise that there are obligations corresponding with our individual rights.

Upholding the highest levels of integrity

Our entire business model is based on trust and integrity as perceived by our stakeholders, especially our customers.

Constantly raising the bar

We have confidence in our ability to achieve ambitious goals, and we celebrate success, but we must never allow ourselves to become complacent or arrogant.

Living our values through our Code of Ethics

Our Code of Ethics forms the basis for all our business decisions and operations and a decision-making paradigm followed in our service delivery, product development and client relations.

This code serves as a beacon to follow and ensures that we remain true to our original purpose of driving Africa’s sustainable growth.

In keeping with our purpose, and our ESG approach, the Standard Bank Group is committed to respecting the human rights of people involved in and impacted by our business. Therefore, our Code of Ethics further aims to achieve a consistent approach to respecting human rights across the group.

Reporting unethical behaviour

If you believe an employee of Standard Bank has breached our Code of Ethics, please contact the Ethics and Fraud Hotline.

Hotline Contact Details

Download our documents and reports

Code of ethics

2022-09-20

656 KB

PDF

Code of ethics (French)

2022-11-02

698 KB

PDF

Code of ethics (Portuguese)

2022-11-02

700 KB

PDF

Human rights statement

2019-11-08

200 KB

PDF

ESG report 2021

2022-03-31

8.4MB

PDF

UN Principles for responsible banking self assessment 2021

2022-03-31

750 KB

PDF

Sustainability reporting centre

Visit our Sustainability Reporting Centre to view and download policies and documents in support of our commitment to driving Africa’s sustainable growth.