South Africa's largest banks enter fierce competition for mid-sized companies
Its annual revenue is between 100 million and 1.5 billion rand.
Written by Ziad Abdel Fattah:
Competition is intensifying among South Africa's largest banks to acquire the corporate segment. Medium sizeAfter becoming one of the most attractive and profitable sectors in the market, in light of the decline in the growth of retail banking services, affected by the factors of the economic recession, as well as the difficulty of competing for customers from large companies.
Major banks, including Nedbank, Investec, First Rand, First National Bank and Standard Bank, are moving to strengthen their presence in this sector by creating specialized units and developing banking services specifically designed to meet the needs of these companies.
Revenues of medium-sized companies in South Africa
South Africa's medium-sized enterprise (MME) sector comprises companies with annual revenues ranging from 100 million to 1.5 billion rand (US$6 million to US$91 million), operating in vital sectors including manufacturing, mining services, agriculture, retail, and logistics. Bankers believe these companies benefit from higher growth rates, stronger cash flow, and greater stability compared to smaller companies, making them a significant source of bank revenue.
In this context, Marlon Davids, Head of Mid-Corporate Sector at Nedbank, confirmed that the bank considers this sector to be one of the most important drivers of strategic growth in the coming years, noting that the bank has established an independent unit comprising specialized banking teams and credit committees targeting up to 30% of mid-poros in the country.
Nedbank plans to increase the number of employees in this business unit.
Nedbank plans to increase the number of employees in this unit to about 30, compared to 10 currently, after the customer base recorded growth of 50% since the unit was launched last year.
For its part, Investec Bank believes that banking services aimed at medium-sized companies achieve returns on equity of around 30%, which is almost double the average returns achieved by large traditional banks.
South African banks are targeting an increase in customers in this segment.
Nick Riley, head of business and trade banking at Investec, revealed that the bank aims to double its medium-sized corporate client base to over 7,000 by 2030, while increasing annual revenues from this sector to 3.8 billion rand compared to about 1.7 billion rand in 2025.
He added that the bank has invested more than 300 million rand to develop an integrated banking system, scheduled to be launched before March 2027, with the aim of enhancing its ability to compete with larger banks in everyday corporate transaction services.
First National Bank, which serves more than 20,000 medium-sized companies, announced the integration of its medium and large corporate units into a single sector, in a move aimed at providing more sophisticated financial products to rapidly growing companies.
Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank by assets, is looking at opportunities outside the South African market, aiming to expand its operations in the East and West markets of the continent, where its market share is still less than 10%.
Bill Blackie, the bank’s chief business and trade banking officer, said that medium-sized companies are becoming more involved in intra-African trade than in their dealings with major economic blocs such as China or the United States, noting that many African economies are recording strong growth rates.
Financial institutions estimate the size of the opportunities available in the medium-sized companies sector in Africa at about 150 billion rand, with 851 TP3T of that concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Standard Bank aims to increase its loan portfolio by approximately 101 TP3T and raise the volume of deposits in the business and commercial banking sector to more than 725 billion rand by 2028, compared to 514 billion rand in 2025.
Analysts believe that increased competition among banks for this segment will benefit medium-sized companies by improving service levels, providing more flexible and competitive financing solutions, and offering better prices and terms to customers.
