Battle of the banks 2025: Capitec vs Standard Bank vs FNB vs Absa vs Nedbank

However, while we have seen the rise of digital banks like TymeBank and Discovery Bank—with OM Bank just the latest to join the races—the more established banks still rule the roost.

The question that always lingers, though, is which of South Africa’s financial powerhouses is the biggest?

The answer isn’t always as clear-cut and depends on which aspect of business operations one considers to be the primary measure.

If looking at customer numbers, Capitec is by far the largest bank in the country. But if you’re looking at assets, Standard Bank takes the crown.

Value is another common metric to determine size, and by this measure, FirstRand stands above the rest with a market cap of R35 billion above its closest competitor.

With FirstRand being the last of the big banks to publish its full-year results, we finally have a fuller view of their performance in the latest financial year.

BusinessTech looked at the “big five” and measured their heft across 13 key metrics to determine which can truly call themselves the “biggest of the big banks”.

The data below covers both the group and South African operations. For example, group data was used for finances, while South African data was taken from customer numbers and ATM/branch networks. FNB is represented by FirstRand Group, but FNB branches and ATMs were used for the figures. Share prices, market cap, and P/E ratios were taken from Google Finance data.

The data covers the following reporting periods:

• FirstRand – FY 2025 (ended June 2025)
• Capitec – FY 2025 (ended February 2025)
• Absa – FY 2024 (ended December 2024)
• Nedbank – FY 2024 (ended December 2024)
• Standard Bank – FY 2024 (SBSA) (ended December 2024)

Market capitalisation and P/E ratio

Back in 2017, Capitec had the smallest market capitalisation among the big five retail banks, but has since climbed to second place by this metric.

Capitec has seen a staggering jump in its valuation, surging over 75% to R350 billion in 2024, and another 18% to hit R414 billion 2025.

At one point in the past month or so, the group even topped FirstRand as having the largest market cap among the legacy banks.

However, FirstRand has so far maintained its position as the most valuable bank on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with a market cap of almost R450 billion.

When it comes to share price, Capitec far surpasses its peers.

The group shot past the R1,000 per share mark in 2018 and passed the R3,000 mark over the past 12 months—by far the highest among the big banks.

However, this also makes Capitec the most expensive when looking at the price over earnings (P/E) ratio, almost triple the next in line.

The P/E ratio is a valuation ratio that measures a company’s current share price relative to its per-share earnings. Nedbank is the ‘cheapest’ stock among banks, with a P/E of 6.4.

Group Finance

While South Africa’s banks have had to grapple with consumers under strain in the past few years, business operations have recovered strongly.

An analysis compiled by PwC showed that the major banks’ combined headline earnings grew 11.2% in the first half of 2025 against 1H24 to R69.7 billion.

This significantly outpaced the rates of economic growth in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

Underpinning earnings growth was the combination of solid top-line growth across net interest income (up 4.8% against 1H24) and non-interest revenue (up 10.5% against 1H24), supported by a nearly 2% decline in bad debt charges.

This is a continuation of the growth seen in the FY results for 2024, where all the major banks saw significant growth in income and profits, with a continued reduction in credit losses.

Among the banks, Standard Bank remained the income and earnings champion, recording a massive R182 billion in income and R44.5 billion in headline earnings for the year.

FirstRand was not far behind, with R41.8 billion in headline earnings for the year.

While Capitec recorded the lowest income and headline earnings across the banks, its headline earnings per share far outstripped the others, at 11,912 cents per share.

Core capital and ROE

The Banker’s top 1000 banks report is based on a measure of a bank’s Tier 1 Capital – known as core capital, which consists of shareholders’ equity and retained earnings.

South Africa’s banking sector is again led by Standard Bank, which retains its position as the biggest bank in the country when measuring capital.

This is followed by FirstRand, which retains its number two spot.

Looking at Return on Equity, which is considered a gauge of a corporation’s profitability and efficiency in generating profits, Capitec stands out as having the highest in this measure.

The higher the ROE, the more efficient a company’s management is at generating income and growth from its equity financing.

Most of the banks have improved this measure, though Absa noted in its results that it fell short of its own target, but was moving to rectify this.

Network

While the big banks face pressure from digital players, they still maintain wide networks of physical points of presence while also making digital interactions more accessible.

Most of the banks have been cutting branches—or at the very least reducing branch space—and ATMs, but they still maintain these points of precence to ensure customers have access to services.

This is also increasingly important in the context of new services—such as Home Affairs’ Smart ID services—rolling out to more branches in the coming years.

In terms of branches, Capitec stands out as having both the largest branch network and ATM network, and is generally the only bank rapidly expanding this physical reach.

The other banks have had mixed results. Some are adding branches and ATMs, but on a small scale, while most are cutting back physical points.

People

One of the most common ways to determine the size of a bank is to look at its customer base.

Capitec has grabbed headlines over the past few years, racking up a huge number of banking customers in the country.

This comes with the caveat that many people open up a secondary account with the group, but it does not take away from the fact that it can claim to bank a third of South Africa’s entire population.

The bank is leveraging this immense customer base to sell other services, like Capitec Connect, while also expanding its operations into business banking.

Standard Bank has also grown its active customer base to 12.4 million in South Africa, taking a comfortable second place.

In contrast to previous years, when a more detailed count of customers in South Africa was provided, Absa only included a group total of 12.7 million customers across 16 countries.

However, based on the historic trend of South African customers making up 80% of this total, it is estimated that the bank’s local base was around 10 million at FY2024.

Reflecting the massive scale of their respective businesses, Standard Bank and FirstRand have the most employees across their operations in South Africa.