Productivity in an imperial bank in the age of high imperialism: The case of the Standard Bank of South Africa 1882–1900

Abstract

Abstract In the two decades before the Anglo-Boer War, the Standard Bank occupied a commanding position in banking in southern Africa. This had occurred because it commanded greater resources and was better managed than the locally owned Cape banks. Indeed by the early 1890s, with the exception of the tiny Stellenbosch District Bank, which almost went under in 1889 and had to reduce its capital to £ 466, all the banks in the Cape Colony were London-based imperial banks. The Standard Bank was the oldest and largest of these imperial banks.