A2B Strategy | Strategy Facilitation for Financial Services

The Legacy Banks Are Dead, Long Live the Legacy Banks: Big 4 Headline Earnings Comparison (CY2025)

Originally published on LinkedIn, March 2026. Source: Annual results presentations (FY2024, FY2025). FirstRand uses calendar year derived from fiscal halves.

This is a like-for-like comparison of headline earnings across the primary business areas of the Big 4 legacy banks — SA Retail, SA Commercial, African Operations (Retail and Commercial combined), and Corporate and Investment Banking — for calendar year 2025. It allows for a transparent high-level comparative assessment across Standard Bank, FirstRand, Nedbank and ABSA.

Summary

Summary: Legacy Big 4 grew earnings 9.5% in a tough environment

Methodology

Notes on methodology — like-for-like comparison across primary business areas

Total Headline Earnings: Up 9.5% to R135b

Big 4 total headline earnings up 9.5% to R135b in CY2025

SA Retail: Up 11.4% (26% of Total HE)

SA Retail earnings comparison — FNB dominant at R14.2bn (+16.1%)

SA Commercial: Down 0.9% (17.9% of Total HE)

SA Commercial earnings — FNB dominant scale effect at R11.3bn

Africa R&C: Up 14.1% (6.4% of Total HE)

Africa Retail and Commercial — ABSA blowout with 51.5% growth

CIB: Up 13% (42% of Total HE)

CIB earnings — Standard Bank killing it at R24.1bn (+17.6%)

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