GOVERNANCE WATCH
By InsidEntity Editorial Desk · Sep 23, 2026 · 8 min read
Spotlight | Banking | 23 September 2026
Standard Bank Group (JSE: SBK) and Nedbank Group (JSE: NED)
On 28 May 2026, Moody’s affirmed the Ba2 issuer ratings of Standard Bank Group and Nedbank Group in a single rating action and moved both outlooks to positive. The action followed Moody’s affirmation of South Africa’s own Ba2 rating six days earlier.
Same country, same regulator, same agency and same date. On Moody’s issuer rating, the two banks received the same assessment: Ba2, with positive outlooks.
A credit rating measures creditworthiness. It is not built to show how a board is structured or how long an audit relationship has run. InsidEntity approaches the comparison through two separate lenses, financial stability and governance. On governance, the biggest difference comes from one input: who audits the books, and for how long. That input changed at Standard Bank this year, and the change decides which bank leads.
Three ratings, two banks
| Standard Bank Group | Nedbank Group | |
|---|---|---|
| Moody’s issuer rating | Ba2, positive | Ba2, positive |
| Financial Stability Rating | 4.0 | 3.7 |
| CRR on Standard Bank’s FY2025 auditors | 3.88, Good | 4.37, Excellent |
One rotation, once it reaches the platform, turns Standard Bank from trailing Nedbank by 0.49 to leading it by 0.14.
Both Financial Stability Ratings are built on three years of full-year audited statements, FY2023 to FY2025, to December 2025. Neither uses either bank’s 2026 interim results, and for both banks the window is current: their FY2025 statements were signed in March 2026, and FY2026 does not close until December.
The pillars
| Pillar | Standard Bank, FY2025 auditors | Standard Bank, FY2026 auditors | Nedbank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Director Independence | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 |
| Director Capacity | 3.03 | 3.03 | 3.48 |
| Auditor Independence | 2.50 | 5.00 | 4.00 |
| Shareholder Influence | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 |
| CRR | 3.88 | 4.51 | 4.37 |
Each CRR is the average of its four pillar scores:
- Standard Bank, FY2025 auditors: (5.00 + 3.03 + 2.50 + 5.00) ÷ 4 = 3.88
- Standard Bank, FY2026 auditors: (5.00 + 3.03 + 5.00 + 5.00) ÷ 4 = 4.51
- Nedbank: (5.00 + 3.48 + 4.00 + 5.00) ÷ 4 = 4.37
Where a company has joint auditors, the platform averages their tenure scores, and that is where every difference in the Auditor Independence row comes from.
- Standard Bank on its FY2025 auditors, 2.50. EY, in its second year and in the one-to-three-year band at 5.00, averaged with PwC, far past the ten-year point at which the clock reaches 0.00.
- Standard Bank on its FY2026 auditors, 5.00. EY and Deloitte, both in the one-to-three-year band.
- Nedbank, 4.00. KPMG, appointed 2024 and at 5.00, averaged with EY, appointed 2019 on the platform record and in the six-to-seven-year band at 3.00.
Director Independence reads 5.00 for both banks as a placeholder, because directors have not completed the platform’s independence questionnaires. It is not an assessment of either board.
On the FY2026 auditors, the arithmetic of the gap is short. Standard Bank leads on Auditor Independence by 1.00. Nedbank leads on Director Capacity by 0.45. The other two pillars are level. Net, (1.00 − 0.45) ÷ 4 = 0.14 to Standard Bank.
The auditor record
Standard Bank has replaced both of its joint auditors in three years.
| Audit year | Standard Bank’s joint auditors |
|---|---|
| FY2023 | KPMG and PwC |
| FY2024 | EY and PwC |
| FY2025 | EY and PwC |
| FY2026 | EY and Deloitte |
The tenure figures are not this publication’s reconstruction. They are printed in the auditors’ own report. Standard Bank’s FY2025 annual financial statements, signed on 11 March 2026, report that Ernst & Young Incorporated and PricewaterhouseCoopers Incorporated “have been the joint auditors of Standard Bank Group Limited for 2 years and 63 years, respectively”. PwC’s tenure ended with that audit, and Deloitte joined EY as joint auditor for FY2026.
The rotation carries a legal footnote. In 2022 the group said South Africa’s mandatory audit firm rotation rule required it to rotate one joint auditor before its 2024 financial year and the other before 2026. On 31 May 2023 the Supreme Court of Appeal set that rule aside, finding the regulator had no power to make it. Standard Bank completed both rotations anyway, KPMG leaving after the FY2023 audit and PwC after FY2025. Like Sasol before it, it finished a rotation the law no longer required.
A separate rule survived, and it is the reason the 63 years can be quoted at all. The regulator’s 2015 tenure disclosure rule, under which auditors of public interest entities must state how long they have audited the company, remains in force. The FY2025 report cites it.
What the pillar does with all of this needs stating plainly. A long tenure scores low by design, and a rotation resets the clock to the top. The score is a structural signal about the audit relationship, not a finding about any firm’s professional independence, and not a judgement that the bank became better governed when the new appointment took effect. Standard Bank’s board did not change on the day Deloitte arrived. The clock did.
One grade, different questions
Moody’s and InsidEntity are not measuring the same thing, so identical and different results can both be right.
Moody’s tied this action to its sovereign view: the bank rating changes followed its affirmation of South Africa at Ba2 and the move to a positive outlook. Its analysis also rests on each bank’s own standalone credit assessment. The result is one grade for both.
The FSR asks how financially stable each entity has been over three audited years. Standard Bank scores 4.0 and Nedbank 3.7.
The CRR asks how each entity is governed: board independence, board capacity, audit tenure and who holds influence on the register. On the published record, Nedbank leads, 4.37 to 3.88. Once the platform scores Standard Bank’s FY2026 auditors, Standard Bank would lead by 0.14.
The point is not that one system is right. It is that a single grade cannot show which parts of an entity are strong, and that a governance score can move on an event that says nothing about credit.
Sensitivity: setting aside the placeholder
Both banks carry the Director Independence placeholder of 5.00. Averaging only the three measured pillars widens Standard Bank’s lead, on its FY2026 auditors, from 0.14 to 0.18.
| Measure | Standard Bank, FY2026 auditors | Nedbank |
|---|---|---|
| Three measured pillars, averaged | (3.03 + 5.00 + 5.00) ÷ 3 = 4.34 | (3.48 + 4.00 + 5.00) ÷ 3 = 4.16 |
This is a sensitivity on a single input, not a second rating.
Five things to watch
- ICBC’s stake. ICBC is Standard Bank’s largest shareholder at 19.7%, per the bank’s own register at 30 June 2026. That is 0.3 percentage points below the 20% line the Shareholder Influence pillar tests. At or above it, the pillar falls from 5.00 to 4.50 and Standard Bank’s CRR from a projected 4.51 to 4.38, leaving it 0.01 ahead of Nedbank. No holder on Nedbank’s register sits as close to the line.
- Nedbank’s EY clock. On the platform record’s dates, EY reaches eight years on 1 January 2027 and moves into the eight-to-nine-year band, which scores 2.00. Averaged with KPMG’s 5.00, Nedbank’s Auditor Independence would fall to 3.50 and its CRR to about 4.25.
- Director Capacity. It is the one pillar where Nedbank leads, 3.48 to 3.03. No rotation resets it; it moves only as board composition changes.
- The first EY and Deloitte audit report. Standard Bank’s FY2026 statements, due in early 2027, will be the first signed by the new pair, and their tenure disclosure will be the first public record of the rotation in the auditors’ own words.
- The positive outlooks. Both banks carry positive Moody’s outlooks. Any further rating action will depend on Moody’s assessment at the time, while their InsidEntity ratings continue to move on their own inputs.
None of these would move Moody’s rating on its own. Each of the first four can move the CRR. That is the part worth watching.
About the ratings
The Company Risk Rating scores an entity from 1 to 5 on four governance pillars: Director Independence, Director Capacity, Auditor Independence and Shareholder Influence. Bands run 5 Benchmark, 4 Excellent, 3 Good, 2 Caution, 1 Risk. Where directors have not returned signed independence questionnaires, Director Independence is carried at 5.00 as a placeholder rather than as an assessed score. Where a company has joint auditors, Auditor Independence averages their tenure scores.
The Financial Stability Rating is built only from full-year audited financial statements, on a rolling three-year window. Interim results are never used.
The credit rating gives the two banks the same headline assessment. The Financial Stability Rating and the Company Risk Rating show differences the headline does not, and in this case one change in the audit record is enough to change which bank leads on governance.
Independent research. Not financial advice. No allegation of wrongdoing is made against any individual or entity named.
Know more. Risk less. Decide better.
Sources: Moody’s, rating action on South African banks, 28 May 2026; Nedbank Group SENS on the Moody’s rating action, 29 May 2026; Standard Bank Group annual financial statements FY2025, independent auditors’ report, audit tenure disclosure, signed 11 March 2026; Standard Bank Group annual financial statements FY2024, audit tenure disclosure, signed 12 March 2025; Standard Bank Group, information for shareholders, top ten shareholders at 30 June 2026; Standard Bank Group SENS, notification of change of auditors; East Rand Member District of Chartered Accountants v Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (113/2022) [2023] ZASCA 81; IRBA Board Notice 138 of 2015, Government Gazette 39475, on audit tenure disclosure; InsidEntity Standard Bank Group and Nedbank Group reports; InsidEntity CRR methodology.
Note on figures: Pillar scores are the platform’s as read on 23 September 2026, except the FY2026 auditor column, which is this publication’s projection. The two Standard Bank columns differ in one input only: Auditor Independence is scored on EY and PwC, the pair that signed the FY2025 statements, and on EY and Deloitte, the pair appointed for FY2026. Every other input is identical. FSR figures are the platform’s headline scores; component scores are not published. The projection for Nedbank’s EY clock rests on the appointment date held in the platform record. The 4.38 in the first watch item is this publication’s arithmetic: (5.00 + 3.03 + 5.00 + 4.50) ÷ 4.
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