Awards for Excellence 2016
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Few institutions have true scope in sales and trading in all important asset classes in Africa. One bank that does is Standard Bank, winner of our inaugural best bank for markets award.
The bank operates in 20 countries on the continent, including South Africa and Namibia, where it is listed. Standard Bank says it is the world’s number one liquidity provider of African foreign currencies, executing over 30% of Africa’s foreign exchange volume (including South Africa). This offering is underpinned by the strong liquidity of its South African home base.
Standard Bank is a market marker in 40 of Africa’s 54 currencies. It is the leading market maker in South Africa and Nigeria, the two largest markets in sub-Saharan Africa. It offers 24-hour electronic access to the foreign exchange market via its in-house trading platform, eMarketTrader. Around 700 corporate clients use that platform and over the last 12 months they executed 76,000 trades on it, with a total value of $34 billion.
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Standard Bank’s equities research division is focused on sub-Saharan Africa. Its 28 analysts are based in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and the UK. Over the last six months, they published 11 reports and some 31,000 research notes.
Finally, the bank’s strategic partnership with ICBC – the Chinese bank owns 20.1% of Standard Bank – puts it in a unique position to boost trade and foreign exchange flows between China and Africa. Standard Bank offers renminbi letters of credit, spot, forwards and options.
Partly thanks to its performance in markets, Standard Bank as a whole has been performing strongly, increasing its return on equity over the last year from 12.9% to 15.3%, and its headline earnings from R17 billion to R22 billion.
