Standard Bank Looks to Expand Amid Rising Competition in South Africa

South Africa’s largest lender wants to use its position to expand its business banking services amid increasing competition.

As Bloomberg News reported Friday (Aug. 19), Standard Bank Group hopes to make the most of its scale and geographical footprint to fuel its growth, CEO Sim Tshabalala said.

That could mean cross selling a variety of financial solutions, such as insurance and transactional accounts, the CEO told investors.

“We’re very well able to take any combination of established competitors and digital insurgents and take them on head-on,” he said.

Tshabalala also said the bank is increasing its focus on climate change, and expects its green loan book to reach at least 250 billion rand ($15 billion) by the end of 2026, up from an anticipated 50 billion rand at the end of this year.

See also: South Africa’s TymeBank Acquires SMB-Focused FinTech Retail Capital

This news comes two weeks after South Africa-based digital bank TymeBank proposed purchasing Retail Capital, in the interest of boosting its business banking services.

Retail Capital provides funding for smaller businesses in South Africa. The deal, when final, would see it become a decision on TymeBank, combining its funding work with Tyme’s deposit base and operations, thus creating a larger customer base.

Tyme noted that the companies can offer an “evolving” range of digital solutions to make doing business easier. It has multi-benefit transactional business accounts, while Retail Capital provides ways for small businesses to get funded.

Read more: South Africa, the Startup Hub With a Record for Launching Global Businesses

PYMNTS reported earlier this month on the trend among South African startups to expand beyond their country’s — and their continent’s — borders.

As Maurizio Caio, managing partner at venture capital firm TLcom Capital said in a recent interview, “South Africa is a very interesting phenomenon that is kind of a parallel universe […] somehow the [country’s] entrepreneurs do not have a big interest in expanding in sub-Saharan Africa. They tend to go to Europe and to the U.S., so it’s kind of a different animal.”

There are also a number of startups that have chosen to expand across Africa, including FinTech companies like Stitch, Nomanini, Juno and Yoco.