[3] The company's corporate headquarters, Standard Bank Centre, is situated at 5 Simmonds Street, Johannesburg.

During the 1970s and 1980s Standard Chartered gradually reduced its shareholding, and sold its remaining 39% stake in Standard Bank Group in 1987, transferring complete ownership of the holding company to South African investors and in particular Liberty Life (and its affiliates), with the latter being the company's major shareholder until 1999.

[8] In March 2019, Standard became the first bank in Africa to shift its operations onto Amazon Web Services.

The decision was taken due to a growing use of self-service channels and a branch network becoming less relevant.

[10][11][verification needed] In July 2021, Standard Bank announced that it would increase its stake in Liberty Holdings, a South African insurance company, from 54% to 100%, for $594 million.

[8] Standard Bank now trades under the name Stanbic Bank in Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Ivory Coast becomes the 19th African country where Standard Bank maintains a subsidiary.

[15] Standard Bank SARL ("SBM") has a long history and is considered one of the leaders of the local market.

[16] The Standard Bank Namibia is largely detached from the South African parent company for legal reasons.

This gave subsidiary Stanbic IBTC Holdings significant presence in the Nigerian market.

[8] In September 2012, Stanbic Bank Tanzania secured financing worth $3 billion for Mchuchuma Iron Ore and Liganga Coal mining project in the Ludewa district of the newly created region of Njombe in southwestern Tanzania.

[22] In November 2013, Standard Bank confirmed it was in talks to sell a controlling stake in its London-based global markets business.

[23] In January 2014 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Standard Bank PLC (Standard Bank) £7,640,400 for failings relating to its anti-money laundering (AML) policies and procedures over corporate customers connected to politically exposed persons (PEPs).

Between 15 December 2007 and 20 July 2011, Standard Bank failed to comply with Regulation 20(1) of the Money Laundering Regulations because it failed to take reasonable care to ensure that all aspects of its AML policies were applied appropriately and consistently to its corporate customers connected to PEPs.

In 2006, Standard Bank bought BankBoston Argentina unit expanding its operations into this country.