Standard Bank Group

Corporate and Investment Banking

We unlock Africa’s potential through proactive client partnerships that deliver relevant solutions to large multinational and institutional clients

Programme areas
Global Markets Graduate Programme

In this program, you'll gain hands-on experience across key areas of global financial markets, including trading, sales, structuring, and risk management. You’ll work with a diverse range of asset classes—such as FX, commodities, equities, credit, fixed income, and debt instruments—while also gaining exposure to market insights, trading services, analytics, and the development of innovative financial products.

We’re looking for proactive, collaborative individuals with a positive attitude, a passion for solving complex problems, and a commitment to doing business with integrity. Throughout the program, you'll be immersed in the full spectrum of our business, acquiring the skills and knowledge needed before deciding on a specific area of focus.

Programme duration: 18 months 

Application dates: 15 April 2025 – 15 June 2025

Minimum Requirements:

  • South African Citizen
  • Maximum of two years' work experience
  • Minimum of 65% average over all years of study

Qualifications

Post graduate or 4 year degree in:

  • Actuarial Science
  • Applied Sciences
  • Computer Science
  • Data Science
  • Engineering
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics
  • Mcom
  • Quantitative Management
  • Advanced Analytics

Key skills and characteristics:

  • Working collaboratively with others
  • Resilience
  • Creative Problem solving and considered decision making
  • Curiosity and willingness to learn
  • Positive attitude and self confidence
Investment Banking Graduate Programme

If you consider yourself a "mover and shaker," our Investment Banking program is designed to keep you engaged, challenged, and always on your toes. Your proactive mindset and resilience will be key as you navigate high-impact deals like mergers and acquisitions, capital restructuring, and empowerment projects across the continent.

We don't expect you to choose your area of specialization right away. Instead, we’ll provide comprehensive training and expose you to the full breadth of our business, giving you the insight and experience to choose your focus when the time is right.

If you're passionate about creative problem-solving, committed to doing business the right way, and driven by the desire to help our clients achieve their goals, this program could be the perfect fit for you.

Programme duration: 18 months

Application dates: 15 April 2025 – 15 June 2025

Minimum Requirements:

  • South African Citizen
  • Maximum of two years' work experience
  • Minimum of 65% average over all years of study
  • Qualifications
  • Actuarial Science
  • Bachelor Business Science
  • Bachelor of Commerce Honours
  • Economics
  • Finance and Investment Management
  • Mcom
  • Engineering
  • Mathematics and Statistics

Key skills and characteristics:

  • Working collaboratively with others
  • Resilience
  • Creative Problem solving and considered decision making
  • Curiosity and willingness to learn
  • Positive attitude and self confidence
Operations Graduate Programme

Our Operations Graduate Programme provides the opportunity to build deep specialisation in either Investment Banking operations, Global Markets operations or Investor Services operations. Through rotations on various teams, you'll also gain a broad understanding of the operations business segment.

You’ll be a self-driven, curious individual with a natural desire to understand the world around you. A creative problem-solver at heart, you thrive in collaborative environments, always eager to connect with colleagues to enhance your learning. Resilient and strategic, you’re motivated by challenges and take a thoughtful, measured approach to decision-making.

Programme duration: 24 Months

Application dates: 1 April 2025 – 15 June 2025

Qualifying criteria: 

  • A minimum of 65% across all years of study
  • A minimum of a postgraduate degree in: Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science, Informatics, Business, Mathematics & Informatics, Actuarial Science, Economics, Finance and Investment Management, or Statistics.
Finance Graduate Programme

Forget what you'd normally expect from a Finance function. Today, we're so much more. We're guardians of our organisation's financial resources, using our technical expertise to ensure efficient use the scarcest resources.

We need to have a total understanding of the complex structure of our organisation, products and markets, so we can implement robust controls that benefit our shareholders, clients, regulators and partners.  

And we must make sure we link in closely with business to advise on opportunities and threats. We're a hub for innovation; heavily invested in new ways of working and data science.

For our Finance graduate programme, we're looking for individuals who bring something different. We encourage our people to express their individuality and apply their unique skillset to help drive our organisation forward.

You’ll get exposure and insight into the inner workings of a major financial institution – and have an important role to play from day one, ensuring that your experience is practical, relevant and valuable. 

Self-motivated and curious about the world around you, you'll be able to adapt in an ever-changing environment, and motivated by solving complex problems. An excellent communicator with a genuine passion for finance and financial markets, you'll enjoy working collaboratively in a team, and be committed to excellence and delivery. 

Programme duration: 24 to 36 Months 

Application dates: 1 April 2025 – 15 June 2025

Qualifying criteria: 

  • A minimum of 65% across all years of study
  • A minimum of a postgraduate degree: diverse degrees will be considered (with the exception of Auditing) and emphasis for filtering for minimum skills/knowledge (e.g. financial acumen) will apply more rigorously in the online application process.
Risk Graduate programme

Embark on a Journey with Our Corporate and iInvestment Bbanking (CIB) Risk Management Graduate Programme.

At the forefront of shaping the future of Risk Management, we are committed to reducing risk while fostering innovation and excellence. Our Risk Management Graduate Programme is designed for individuals who are not only adept at mitigating risk but are also driven by curiosity, resilience, self-motivation, and a knack for creative problem-solving.

Risk Management is complex and multifaceted, requiring a comprehensive understanding of the bank’s financial risk profile, defining risk appetite, identifying growth opportunities, and protecting the interests of our shareholders and investors. Our approach blends thorough qualitative and quantitative analysis to drive informed decision-making, ensure regulatory compliance, and maintain responsible practices. We collaborate across diverse sectors and product areas to optimize returns, while carefully evaluating a wide range of risks—including financial, economic, legal, political, regulatory, environmental, and reputational factors.

By joining our Risk Management graduate programme, you will gain unparalleled experience across critical areas of Corporate and Investment Banking. You will have the opportunity to engage with key businesses and transactions, working within domains such as Corporate Credit Risk, Non-Financial Risk, Real Estate Finance Credit Risk, Financial Institutions Credit Risk, Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Risk, Country & Sovereign Risk, Data Management, and Risk Assurance.

Programme duration: 18 months

Application dates: 1 April to 15 June 2025

Qualifications

A minimum of a postgraduate degree in:

  • Mathematics and Statistics
  • Actuarial Science
  • Financial Mathematics
  • Financial Risk Management
CIB Technology Graduate Programme

In an ever-changing global landscape, our ability to deliver cutting edge financial products and services on digital platforms, is key to the success of our franchise. CIB Technology is the backbone of the Corporate Banking businesses of Global Markets, Transaction Banking, Investment Banking and Real Estate. The intense, high-performance environment of Global Markets and Transaction Banking makes partnering with these areas particularly exciting. As the technology partner, the solutions we provide enable the processing of multi-million-rand transactions by these businesses. Additionally, CIB Technology empowers our business with a technology landscape that services non-retail customers which include Banks, public institutions, corporates, and asset managers to name a few and facilities various transaction types, from high frequency trading (Algorithmic trading) with low values, to low frequency trading, high value payments to complex structured products.

Our graduate programme aims to attract talent that not only displays sound technical knowledge and skills, but who can be groomed into thought leaders and trusted partners. We blend theoretical learning of hard and soft skills with practical experience. Your learning journey will be supported through several rotations, where you will be exposed to the end-to-end life lifecycle of the CIB Technology business. This includes, learning about application and technology architecture processes through the disciplines of analysis, design, development, testing and deployment, as well as being exposed to the operations, maintenance, and support processes of live production environments.

Furthermore, we work on almost all technologies, and we are encouraged to give our business a competitive advantage. Some of the common technologies across CIB: JAVA, Angular, GO, C, C#, C++, AWS, AZURE, Salesforce, AKS, Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes clustering, SQL (Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server, Mongo), Matlab, Source Code repositories (GIT, SVN), Bitbucket Server, GIT Lab, SourceTree, Agile framework (JIRA), Confluence Wiki, Scripting (Murex, Java, Shell, Unix), VBA

Upon completion of the graduate programme, you will have the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience to kick-start your career and to find a home in CIB Technology, where you can thrive and contribute to the broader success of the Standard Bank Group.

Qualifications
Post Graduate qualification (Completed or completing in 2023)

  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  • Electronic Engineering
  • Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Financial Mathematics
  • Statistics
  • Informatics, Information Systems
  • Software Development
  • Software Engineering
  • Data Engineering
  • Data Science
  • Quantitative Risk Management

Programme duration: 12 months

Application date: 15 March to 30 May 2025

CIB QUANT Graduate Programme

Accelerate Your Career with Our Corporate and investment banking (CIB) Quantitative Graduate Programme.

Are you a recent postgraduate degree holder in Actuarial Science, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Math of Finance, Physics, Quantitative Risk Management or Statistics? Do you have the desire and passion to implement creative problem solutioning across various disciplines within Risk Management, Corporate and Investment Banking? Are you a self-starter who can work collaboratively in teams and independently? Are you intrigued and stimulated by data analysis, implementation, and deployment of Mathematical and Statistical models?

Join our Quantitative Graduate Programme and immerse yourself in a dynamic learning experience across diverse banking and trading quant teams. This is your chance to gain invaluable exposure while learning from leading industry experts. We are looking for candidates with a growth mindset, resilience, self-motivation, and creative problem-solving skills who are eager to make an impact on the future of risk management and contribute to driving Africa’s growth.

Qualifications

A minimum of a postgraduate degree in:

Some background in Finance (Actuarial Science, Math of Finance, BMI (Business Mathematics and Informatics) etc) – can be BCom Hons/ BSc Hons or higher.

General Science Degree with limited Finance background (Physics, Pure/Applied Maths, Stats, Computer Science, Engineering etc) – should be MSc/MEng.

Key skills and characteristics:

  • Working collaboratively with others
  • Resilience
  • Creative Problem solving and considered decision making
  • Curiosity and willingness to learn
  • Positive attitude and self confidence

Programme duration: 18 months

Application dates: 1 March to 15 May 2025

Apply for Graduate Programmes
Graduate application process

We believe in making dreams possible and connecting the brightest talent to the meaningful opportunities they need to build their skills, ignite their ambitions, and get closer to their purpose.

Step 1: Apply online

  • Visit the Careers Portal 
  • Go to the apply tab then select my profile.​
  • If you are a first-time visitor select tell me more to create your SmartRecruiter profile.​
  • Complete the profile information or upload your LinkedIn or Indeed profile to create a SmartRecruiter profile​
  • Once your profile has been completed and you have uploaded your supporting documents including your full transcripts then you can proceed to apply for your preferred Early Careers Programme.

Step 2: Pre-Screening process

You'll complete a pre-screening questionnaire related to the requirements of the role. You'll then receive notification via email to complete an online Odyssey assessment once you've successfully met all the minimum requirements in accordance with the Programme requirements.

Step 3: Interviews

Once you've successfully passed the screening part of our process, we'll invite you to a video interview for the programme you've selected.​ That will be a panel interview.

If your application is unsuccessful for your preferred programme, but you meet the criteria for another, we'll invite you to a video interview for that programme.

Step 4: Assessments

Candidates that are successful at the interview stage will be asked to complete psychometric assessments. The successful candidates will then proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Final selection

The selected candidates will then be invited to an Assessment Center or a final round interview with business depending on the Programme needs.

Step 6: Offer/Decline

Although we'd like to offer all the talented applicants a place, competition for spaces on our Early Career Programmes is often fierce. That's why, post the final selection stage, we'll prioritise letting you know whether your application has been successful or not.

Still have questions?
Visit our FAQ page before applying