Standard Bank of South Africa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

A group of businessmen led by John Paterson formed the name Standard Bank of British South Africa in 1862. The bank started operations in 1863 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and soon after opening it merged with several other banks including the Commercial Bank of Port Elizabeth, the Colesberg Bank, the British Kaffrarian Bank and the Fauresmith Bank.

It was prominent in financing and development of the diamond fields of Kimberley 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 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.

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

In 1965, Standard Bank merged with the Bank of West Africa expanding its operations into Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.

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.