Speaking at the annual Executive Day, Standard Bank group CFVO Arno Daehnke emphasised growth as a central priority, supported by technology investment, client focus, and active capital allocation across its diverse markets.
Arno Daehnke, group CFVO of Standard Bank, spoke at the annual Executive Day, outlining the bank’s scale, strategic drivers, and approach to growth.
Arno began by placing Standard Bank’s operations in context and explained that the bank is the largest financial institution on the continent, which has about 30 000 employees, as well as a huge value chain. He also added that the bank’s footprint extends across the African continent.
According to Arno, growth remains a central theme for Standard Bank. He defined the bank's efforts as long-term, full-time experience carried out with perfection, and noted that it contributes to the company's sense of progress. He identified three priorities supporting this ambition, namely, energy, construction and building, and optimising the geographic footprint.
Being strategic
Arno also spoke about the strategic value drivers at the heart of Standard Bank’s approach namely, clients, risk and compliance, operational excellence enabled by technology, and employee contribution. “This will have a financial outcome, and the positive impact we’re generating in society and the economies in which we work. This just shows how it all links together,” he said.
According to Arno, technology, in particular, has become a key enabler. He said Standard Bank spends around R23 billion annually on technology, an investment generates roughly seven times that in revenue. “When we think about what we call risk-avoidance technology, that means we can generate more revenue out of it. So, that’s important,” he said.
He noted that artificial intelligence, including predictive technologies, is being used to improve client services, risk management, and cybercrime prevention.
He emphasised that cybersecurity and cloud adoption are major concerns, and that cybercrime accounts for around half of their revenues. “So, you can imagine, we need excellent people throughout the continent,” he said.
Smart capital allocation
The discussion also turned to cost structures and capital allocation. He revealed that Standard Bank’s annual cost base is about R85 billion, of which R50 billion is staff costs. “It’s all actually about prioritisation. That really is the right way to drive values for all our stakeholders and our clients,” he said.
He emphasised the bank's implementation of active portfolio management two years ago, which the peanut butter approach of uniform cost increases, and explained that businesses are classified into five types: transformative growth, growth with losses, balanced corporate, turnaround, and harvest businesses. Each category he said, informs budget allocation decisions at the country and provincial level.
An example of the peanut butter approach was the closure of a long-standing health insurance business in the region. “We said, we’re going to close this out. And we’ve closed it. It’s a big impact,” Arno explained. He added that capital freed up in this way is redirected to higher-growth opportunities and technology investments.
He also explained that active capital allocation had already shown results and that originally, a few years ago, in COVID, it was 9 percent and now it’s about 19 percent.
