South Africa’s 5 biggest banks compared: earnings vs customers vs market cap vs reach

South Africa’s banks face a difficult challenge in the short-to-medium term as they deal with the impact of Covid-19, a depressed local economy, and customers seeking debt relief.

These factors are likely to increase competition among the big five retail banking institutions moving forward.

Experts have looked at the largest retail banks, measuring them across 10 key indicators – ranging from customer base to P/E ratio.

• FirstRand – FY 2020




• Capitec – FY 2020




• Absa Group – FY 2019 (Absa Bank)
• Nedbank Group – FY 2019 (Nedbank Ltd)
• Standard Bank Group – FY 2019 (SBSA)

Three years ago, Capitec had the smallest market capitalisation across the big five retail banks, today, it has the third largest, above Nedbank and Absa on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

FirstRand meanwhile, has comfortably surpassed Standard Bank, and takes the top spot at R230 billion.

Capitec has made significant gains in its share price, and far outpaces any other of the competing banks, but also carries that highest price over earnings (P/E) ratio as a result.

The P/E ratio is the ratio for valuing a company that measures its current share price relative to its per-share earnings.

The ‘cheapest’ stock among the banks is now Nedbank, with a P/E of 6.27.