Standard Bank increased tech spending to R22.4 billion in 2024

Standard Bank has published its group results for the financial year ended 31 December 2024, revealing a 2% increase in technology function spending to R22.4 billion.

According to the group, its technology spending has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7% over the past six financial years.

The R22.4 billion in technology function spending in 2024 comprises 12.7 billion in software, cloud, and technology-related costs, R6.3 billion in staff costs, R2.5 billion from the amortisation of intangible assets, and R917 million in depreciation and other expenses.

This represents a 2% year-on-year increase from the R21.9 billion it spent in 2023.

It attributed the increase to contractual adjustments with service providers.

“Software, cloud, and technology-related costs increased by 3% due to contractual increases on software services, client platform and cloud subscription costs, and an increased usage of cloud applications to support the security and stability of client platforms,” it said.

Standard Bank’s information technology investments appear to be bearing fruit. The bank experienced frequent payday outages in 2021, 2022, and early 2023.

MyBroadband spoke to Standard Bank chief operating officer Margaret Nienaber in early 2023. Standard Bank’s engineering teams had been reporting to Nienaber after group chief engineering officer Alpheus Mangale resigned in mid-2022.

Standard Bank had suffered several outages in the months leading up to Mangale’s resignation.

Nienaber said she was cautiously excited about the group’s progress in addressing technology-related outages.

She said major service outages had reduced by 63% in 2022 compared to 2021.

Moreover, she noted that Standard Bank had reduced the mean time to recover from an outage by nearly 60% over the same period.

Most of the progress was made in the second half of 2022, during which Standard Bank experienced no significant outages.

A comparison of Standard Bank Group’s technology function spending between 2023 and 2024 is summarised in the table below. The chart further below shows its technology function spending from 2019 to 2024.