Overview

Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank by assets, embarked on a major payments modernization initiative to enhance agility, client experience, and operational resilience across 20 African markets. Partnering with Volante Technologies, the bank implemented a cloud-first, ISO 20022-ready payments infrastructure to replace aging legacy systems. The result: faster time to market for new services, support for real-time payment demands, and a scalable foundation for ongoing innovation across the continent.

About Standard Bank

Founded in 1862 and headquartered in Johannesburg, Standard Bank Group is a leading provider of integrated financial services, operating in 20 African countries and international markets. The bank offers a broad range of personal, business, and corporate banking services. With over $150 billion in assets and a mission to drive Africa’s growth, Standard Bank continues to lead digital transformation initiatives across its footprint.

The challenges that Standard Bank faced

To remain competitive in a rapidly digitizing landscape, Standard Bank needed to modernize its monolithic, decades-old payments infrastructure. The bank grappled with inconsistent client experiences across regions, limited real-time processing capabilities, and insufficient operational resilience.

Legacy systems also made it difficult to launch new products quickly, integrate across multiple countries, or comply with evolving regulatory and data standards like ISO 20022. Without transformation, the bank risked falling behind fintechs and digitally native competitors.

How Volante helped Standard Bank

Standard Bank partnered with Volante Technologies to implement its cloud-native Payments as a Service (PaaS) and embedded preprocessing solutions. These solutions aligned with the bank’s cloud-first strategy and introduced an ISO 20022-based data model to ensure scalability and interoperability.

Our collaboration with Volante goes beyond much more than just a working partnership; it represents a pivotal moment in our evolution, built on trust and cultural alignment.

Bessy Mahopo, CIO (CIB – Transformation Programmes), Standard Bank Group

Volante’s low-code integration platform helped Standard Bank address country-specific integration requirements and accelerate rollouts across markets. With end-to-end visibility, standardized workflows, and a modular approach, the bank gained the agility to evolve its payments infrastructure while reducing operational friction.

Modernizing payments across 20 countries

With Volante’s technology in place, Standard Bank unified its payments experience and improved operational consistency across its African footprint. The platform provided end-to-end traceability and enriched client experiences with granular payment notifications.

This transformation enabled Standard Bank to meet rising real-time processing demands and introduce new payment types such as SPID and CODI. The bank can now scale innovation across borders while delivering faster, more reliable services to institutional and retail customers alike.

Building a future-ready platform for growth

Standard Bank’s modernized infrastructure is positioned to support its next phase of growth. The ISO 20022-based data model unlocks richer insights for clients, while the PaaS model allows the bank to scale on demand, adapt to regulatory change, and quickly introduce value-added services.

As financial ecosystems evolve, Standard Bank is equipped to lead, offering advanced products, real-time capabilities, and a unified payment experience across the continent.

The Volante difference

Volante Technologies played a central role in enabling Standard Bank’s digital transformation. By deploying a cloud-first, modular platform tailored to meet multi-country requirements, Volante helped Standard Bank modernize faster and with less risk.