SOUTH Africa’s largest commercial bank, Standard Bank, has reported a 26% rise in profits for 2000, largely in line with expectations and said growth this year would be ”satisfactory”. Stanbic’s headline earnings per share, which strip out the impact of one-off items and their tax effects, rose 26% to 284.8 cents, spot on with analysts’ forecasts. The dividend rose to 85 cents from 68 cents for 1999 while the bank’s cost-to-income ratio fell to 58.9% from 61.6%. Its return on equity increased to 23.5% from 21.8%. The consensus of analysts’ forecasts had seen Stanbic’s headline EPS climbing to 285 cents from 226.5 cents. Stanbic is South Africa’s biggest bank with total assets of R284.2bn at the end of 2000. – Reuters