The number of Standard Bank’s cashless branches in SA has increased to 65 as the group continues to reshape its branch infrastructure in its biggest market due to a rise in digital payments in Africa’s largest economy.
Group CEO Sim Tshabalala said the lender has largely moved the handling of cash out of branches and into ATM and cash centre infrastructure.
“For example, 84% of cash deposits and 97% of cash withdrawals are now done outside branches. Of course, this has allowed the number and average size of traditional branches to be reduced. We currently have 491 branches in SA, of which 65 are cashless,” Tshabalala said.
“Also, we have ramped up alternative and cashless points of representation like kiosks inside retailers. These points of representation are innovative and relatively inexpensive access points where customers can conveniently open accounts and solve queries.”
The reshaping of the group’s branch network has seen its mix of front-line staff pivot towards more multi-skilled consultantsrather than traditional cash tellers, with the number of cash consultants in branches half that of 2020.
“These changes we have made to optimise our infrastructure position us well in an evolving payments landscape,” he said.
Banks prefer consumers to use digital means to make payments as this enables them to gather data they need to inform them on consumer behaviour and in turn which products to take to market.
The SA Reserve Bank is pushing for an overhaul of the country’s payments regime, with non-banks set to enter the clearing and settlement system in a move that will see the hegemony of the traditional banks further challenged by fintechs.
The Bank, which is the custodian of the national payments system, said managing cash in the system costs the economy about R30bn annually — nearly what the state pays in social relief of distress grants.
Standard Bank continues to ramp up its investment in technology. In the six months ended June, the group’s total technology function spend, which includes software and cloud costs, technology staff costs, amortisation and depreciation, increased by 6% to R11.6bn.
“Our revenue to total technology spend has stayed around a multiple of seven times for the last three reporting periods, which we believe is an appropriate measure of technology productivity,” Tshabalala said.
“Over the last five years, savings in ‘on premises’ technology costs and amortisation have been invested in cloud and software subscription costs and technically skilled staff.
“IT intangible assets on the balance sheet are valued at R8bn as at June 30, and this compares with R21bn in 2017,” he said. “This shift illustrates our ways of work changing from large multiyear projects to smaller, agile projects and shows our steady replacement of on-premises, owned and bespoke technology, to using cloud-based software as a service.”
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