Standard Bank of South Africa

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Standard Bank of South Africa is South Africa's biggest banking group. It also has a global presence, operating from 38 other countries including 17 in Africa.

[edit] History

Standard Bank was formed under the name Standard Bank of British South Africa in 1862/1863 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa by a group of businessmen led by John Paterson. Soon after opening, it merged with several other banks including the Commercial Bank of Port Elizabeth, the Colesberg Bank, the British Kaffarian Bank and the Fauresmith Bank.

It was prominent in financing and development of the diamond fields of Kimberly in 1867. The word "British" was dropped from the title in 1883. When gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, the bank expanded northwards and on the 11 October 1886 the bank started doing business in a tent at Ferreira's Camp (later to be called Johannesburg thus becoming the first bank to open a branch on the Witwatersrand gold fields. On 1 November 1901 a second branch was opened in Eloff Street of Johannesburg. From the 1890s through the 1910s the bank opened offices across Africa although some of them were unsustainable and subsequently had to be closed.

In 1912 it opened a branch in New York.

By the mid-1950s, the Standard Bank had around 600 offices in Africa. Its network grew substantially when it merged with the former Bank of British West Africa which had branches in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Gambia.

In 1962, a bank with this name was registered as a South African company, a subsidiary of the main London-based Standard Bank.

When the parent bank merged in 1969 with Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China and the combined bank became known as Standard Chartered Bank, the Standard Bank Group was established as Standard Bank Investment Corporation - the holding company of SBSA.

Standard Chartered sold its 39% stake in Standard Bank Group in 1987, transferring complete ownership of the holding company to South African investors.