It was founded in 1931 as Magazzini Standard (Società Anonima Magazzini Standard) by a former executive of UPIM and subsequently renamed as Standa (acronym for Società Tutti Articoli Nazionali Dell'Abbigliamento).
It was bought by Silvio Berlusconi in July 1988, through Fininvest, which in 1998 sold the "non-food" stores to the Coin due to a financial crisis.
The Standa trademark is now officially owned by REWE, which in 2009 rebranded its supermarkets as Billa.
In 2014 REWE sold its Standa/Billa supermarkets chain to the French retailer Carrefour.
A Standa store was opened by REWE in Cologne but closed in 2017.