Company Announcements

Standard Bank Group Limited

05 April 2023

Publication of 2022 Reporting Suite, No Changes Statement and Restatement of Previously Published Results

Publication of the Standard Bank Group's 2022 Reporting Suite

An electronic version of the group's annual integrated report, governance and remuneration report, risk and capital management report, environmental, social and governance report, report to society and climate-related financial disclosures report have been made available at www.standardbank.com/reporting on Friday, 31 March 2023.

The Standard Bank Group 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held on 12 June 2023. The notice of the AGM and proxy forms will be published on 26 April 2023.

No Change Statement

The consolidated audited annual financial statements of Standard Bank Group for the year ended 31 December 2022 on which KPMG Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. expressed an unmodified opinion, were released on Thursday, 9 March 2023. The full audit opinion, including any key audit matters, is available as part of the group's annual financial statements, accessible via the following link: https://thevault.exchange/?get_group_doc=18/1678340991-SBG2022AnnualFinancialStatements.pdf. 

No modifications have been made to the audited annual financial statements from the date of release to the date of this announcement.

Restatement of 2021 Results

During the preparation of the group's 2022 annual financial statements, the group noted the following restatements relating to the group's 2021 results previously published:

1.   During the current reporting period, the group performed benchmarking and internal investigations to reassess the definition of cash and cash equivalents when compiling the statement of cash flows. The following have been identified as industry best practice during this exercise and have resulted in the following restatements, changes to accounting presentation policies and related additional disclosures:

·      The direct method provides a more reliable representation of the cash flow movements for the group within the statement of cash flows, which is not available under the indirect method. This change only impacted net cash flows from operating activities within the statement of cash flows for the group and company.

·      The group restated its financial statements to appropriately reflect and present the change from on demand loans and advances to banks to cash and cash equivalents in the statement of cash flow and updated the related accounting policy accordingly. These balances were in prior periods excluded from cash and cash equivalents and instead included in income-earning assets. Both the balances and movement have now been appropriately included within the cash and cash equivalents line in the statement of cash flows.

·      The group restated its financial statements to appropriately reflect and present the change from cash balances with banks within investment management and life insurance activities, within financial investments, to cash and cash equivalents in the statement of cash flow. These balances were in prior periods excluded from cash and cash equivalents and instead included in income-earning assets. Both the balances and movement have now been included within the cash and cash equivalents line in the statement of cash flows.

·      Specific updated accounting policies, have been included for the following:

o  Cash and balances with central banks.

o  Cash and cash equivalents.

2.   During the current reporting period, the group performed an assessment on the presentation of MasterCard and Visa fee-related expenses and found that these expenses were erroneously included in operating expenses for the Standard Bank of South Africa Limited ("SBSA") entity within the group. The group incurs scheme assessment fees on its Visa and MasterCard offerings to its clients in the Consumer & High Net Worth and Business & Commercial Clients segments, which are in nature linked to the related fee and commission income within non-interest revenue. These expenses have been reclassified to be presented within fee and commission expenses, resulting in a reallocation of R258 million from operating expenses to fee and commission expenses in the income statement of SBSA company, SBSA group and the group. This restatement is a reallocation between line items and had no impact on profit for the period, EPS (basic and diluted) or headline earnings for the entity and groups noted. The impact relating to the above on the group and company statements of cash flows has been included in the restatement pertaining to the move to the direct method in the statement of cash flows above.

The impact relating to the above on the group and company statements of cash flows has been included in the restatement pertaining to the move to the direct method in the statement of cash flows above.

For further information, please contact:

Ann Hunter

Standard Bank Group Limited
9th Floor
5 Simmonds Street, Johannesburg PO Box 2001
South Africa
Telephone number: +27 11 415 4194

DISCLAIMER

This Announcement is not intended to, and shall not, constitute or contain an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase the securities referred to herein by any person in any jurisdiction where it is unlawful to make an offer or solicitation. The distribution of the Announcement and the offer or sale of the securities referred to herein in certain jurisdictions is restricted by law. This Announcement may not be used for or in connection with, and does not constitute, any offer to, or solicitation by, anyone in any jurisdiction or under any circumstance in which such offer or solicitation is not authorised or is unlawful.

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