Standard Bank awarded best bank for South African rand and African countries

Standard Bank has focused a lot of time and energy on understanding the nuances of each market in Africa

STANDARD Bank, Africa’s biggest lender by assets, has been awarded the Best Bank for South African Rand and the Best Bank for African Currencies excluding the Rand, in FX Week’s 2016 survey of the global foreign exchange industry.

The FX Week Best Banks Awards are the benchmark for performance in the global FX industry and the most accurate indicator of which institutions are leading the market, according to banks, corporate treasurers and investors.

Richard de Roos, Standard Bank’s Head of Foreign Exchange said: “We are very pleased to receive this recognition for Standard Bank.  These are premier awards for currency market makers across the continent’s foreign exchange trading industry, and the stature and quality of the participants in this survey certainly make these awards extremely relevant and an achievement for which Standard Bank is duly proud.”

The FX Week Best Banks awards were decided following a qualitative survey, which polled industry participants to determine their ranking of the most relevant and significant market makers in the currency trading universe.

“These awards are not only a recognition of our relevance to the market but also validate our strategy to leverage our dominant position in our local franchise markets in order to extract liquidity for the purposes of solidifying our growing role in international currency markets,” said Mr de Roos. “The fact that we have been recognised by the major participants in the market shows that our strategy is paying off.”

This is the first year for the accolade for Best Bank for African Currencies excluding the Rand, which was awarded to Standard Bank.

“There’s a common misconception to the outside Africa trading community that all African markets act as a bloc with similar characteristics and limitations, whereas in reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Mr de Roos.

“Standard Bank has focused a lot of time and energy on understanding the nuances of each market in Africa by decentralizing the price making responsibilities away from the South African head office and has made each local market maker, the center of excellence in their own local currency. What this means for our global customers, is that each African FX price they receive from any of the Standard Bank/Stanbic entities, is onshore relevant.”

Standard Bank, which has a presence in 20 markets across Africa, is South Africa’s leading market maker and largest Rand trader, operating from 22 dealing rooms across the globe. Its widespread footprint across Africa means that Standard Bank is ideally positioned to maximise regional opportunities by using its operations to access multiple pools of liquidity from investors across Africa and the rest of the world.

The Best Banks survey is open to any foreign exchange end-user, including dealers, brokers, institutional investors and corporations, making them a highly accurate reflection of how foreign exchange professionals view their peers in terms of overall quality of service.