An Important Data Incident Update - 14 April
14 April 2026 - Important update on the incident recently identified by Standard Bank involving unauthorised access to some of the personal information we hold.
On 23 March 2026, The Standard Bank of South Africa communicated that it had identified an incident involving unauthorised access to select data. The bank provided further updates to clients on 2 April 2026 and 13 April 2026.
The affected systems were internal administrative and document filing systems. Our transactional banking and core operating systems were not accessed, remain secure, and are available to all our clients and employees.
We would like to once again reassure you that we immediately took steps to secure our environment to mitigate the impact of this incident, working with external experts.
During this period, we continue to work tirelessly to engage with our clients who have been impacted. This will continue while we make meaningful progress in our investigations into the incident. Due to the nature of the incident, we have been preparing for the possibility of client and company-related data being made public, which now appears to have been published.
Protecting our clients remains our highest priority and we have, therefore, implemented a range of proactive measures, including enhanced monitoring of credit bureau activity, additional transaction monitoring and fraud detection across our platforms. Additional proactive precautionary steps continue to be implemented to further safeguard affected clients. We also encourage our clients to remain vigilant.
As a trusted financial services provider, as we proceed with the intensive investigation process, we have complied with applicable regulatory notification requirements and will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities.
We realise that this may be concerning for our clients and our stakeholders, we wish to thank them for their patience and trust.
For more information on the incident:
- If you are a Personal or Private Banking client, contact 0860 123 000
- If you are a Business Banking client, contact 0860 109 075
- If you are a Corporate & Investment Banking client, contact your service consultant or relationship manager
- If you are based outside South Africa, please refer to your local Standard Bank contact channels
Frequently Asked Questions – 14 April 2026
1. Has there been any impact on client accounts or banking transactional systems?
- Our transactional banking systems were not accessed, remain secure and operational, and available to all our clients and employees. As a result, no clients’ funds are affected and accounts remain secure. Our services are running normally.
2. What data has been accessed?
The specific information involved may differ from person to person. Based on what we know (at this stage) the affected information involved includes:
- Names
- ID numbers or registration numbers
- Contact details, such as phone numbers, physical and/or email addresses
- Account numbers
We will notify clients directly if affected beyond the above data fields.
3. Am I affected?
- We will notify clients directly if they are affected. Clients in different regions may be contacted through relevant in-country channels. If you are unsure, please contact Standard Bank using your usual banking contact details or your local country call centre.
4. What actions can I take to protect myself?
As a precaution, we advise all our clients to follow good practices, including but not limited to::
- Update your banking passwords on our digital banking platforms as well as your social media platforms.
- Enable biometric authentication on the Standard Bank mobile banking app.
- Contact us or your Relationship Manager immediately if you notice any suspicious activity on your bank accounts or cards.
- Never share personal information such as passwords and PINs when asked to do so by anyone via phone, fax, text messages or even email.
- Use strong unique passwords and enable biometric authentication where possible.
- Register with the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service for protective registration. This is a free service. If anyone tries to apply for any banking related products with your identity number, it will be declined or referred for further review. Visit https://www.safps.org.za/Home/OurServices_ApplyProtectiveRegistration
- Verify any unexpected email, SMS or call asking for sensitive information by contacting the bank through trusted channels.
- Avoid clicking on suspicious links or unfamiliar websites URLs.