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Standard Bank Group Limited is one of South Africa's largest financial services groups. It operates in 39 countries, including 17 in Africa.

A group of businessmen led by John Paterson formed the name Standard Bank of British South Africa in 1862. The bank started operations in 1863 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and soon after opening it merged with several other banks including the Commercial Bank of Port Elizabeth, the Colesberg Bank, the British Kaffrarian Bank and the Fauresmith Bank.

It was prominent in financing and development of the diamond fields of Kimberley in 1867. The word "British" was dropped from the title in 1883. When gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, the bank expanded northwards and on 11 October 1886 the bank started doing business in a tent at Ferreira's Camp (later to be called Johannesburg), thus becoming the first bank to open a branch on the Witwatersrand gold fields. On 1 November 1901 a second branch was opened in Eloff Street of Johannesburg.

From the 1890s through the 1910s the bank opened offices across Africa although some of them were unsustainable and subsequently had to be closed. In 1912 it opened a branch in New York. By the mid-1950s, Standard Bank had around 600 offices in Africa. In 1962, a bank with the name Standard Bank was registered as a South African company, a subsidiary of the main London-based Standard Bank. In 1965, Standard Bank merged with the Bank of West Africa expanding its operations into Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. When the parent bank merged in 1969 with Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China and the combined bank became known as Standard Chartered Bank, the Standard Bank Group was established as Standard Bank Investment Corporation - the holding company of The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited. Standard Chartered sold its 39% stake in Standard Bank Group in 1987, transferring complete ownership of the holding company to South African investors.

In 2006, Standard Bank bought BankBoston Argentina expanding its operations into this country. On 21 August 2007 Standard Bank Group acquired controlling interest in IBTC Chartered Bank. This gave subsidiary Stanbic Bank Nigeria Limited significant presence in the Nigerian market. Also in August 2007, Standard Bank Group acquired a 67% share of the Turkish bank Dundas Ünlü Securities and now operates in Turkey under the name of Standard Ünlü.

In October 2007 the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China acquired a stake of about 20% in Standard Bank for US$5.5bn. Half the stake will come from ICBC acquiring existing shares and half from new shares. ICBC will also get two seats on the board of directors. However, it appears that the South African Reserve Bank will not permit ICBC to acquire more than 25% of Standard Bank's equity.

• Standard Bank Group website
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• Standard Bank in Argentina

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