Standard Bank's decision to keep lending taps open pays off with record profit

Africa's biggest bank by assets, Standard Bank, has booked record profits for 2022 in part due to it benefitting from a big footprint on the continent, but also, it says, due a focus on the smaller details.

"We've got thousands of micro-strategies executed simultaneously," said Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala after his bank gained 6% more customers in SA and grew its headline earnings by 37% to R34.2 billion to end December.

By comparison, Standard Bank's headline earnings stood at R27.2 billion just before the pandemic in 2019. Within a short time, plagued by a pandemic, a war and runaway global inflation, the bank has grown to generate R7 billion more in profit.