This year, the Chinese New Year is the year of the Dragon, and begins on 23 January.

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important of the traditional Chinese holidays and is known as the Lunar New Year. It starts with the new moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon, 15 days later. It’s the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese calendar and is centuries old.

We want to wish all of those celebrating a Happy New Year.

Have you ever considered the value of a smile? This priceless gift can brighten the day and bring joy to those around you.

For the fourth consecutive year, Standard Bank Group has helped give a gift of a smile in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by supporting Operation Smile, which provides free facial reconstructive surgery to children and adults. Read more »

Over the past few weeks Standard Bank and 94.7 Highveld Stereo have been running a competition to spot the most innovative business of the week.

Lots of entries were sent through to the station, but only one business could be named as the winner.

This week’s Business of the Week win went to MatchVIP, owned and managed by Bonita Erasmus.

What is MatchVIP? Read more »

It’s time to bid farewell to 2011 and reflect on the milestones of the past year.

We still remain the largest bank in Africa by earnings and assets, and an extremely strong balance sheet.

Our partnership with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has helped us with our commitment to increasing our African footprint. This is working extremely well and to date we have jointly raised in excess of USD5 billion for infrastructure projects in Africa. Read more »

Recycle, reward and empower are some of the words that Jacendra Naidoo uses to describe his business.

His business Clothes to Cash exchange or C2Cx was recently named the Business of the week in the Standard Bank and 94. 7 Highveld Stereo’s Business of the week competition.

We took time out to talk to Naidoo about the inspiration behind his business, what drives him and what being named Business of the Week means to him.

Why Clothes to Cash Exchange? Read more »

COP17 ended this weekend after an additional 36 hours of negotiations. The outcome: an agreement by all countries that they will put in place measures to cut carbon emissions.

Standard Bank Group remains committed to environmental issues and will continue to assist in reducing the man-made risks related to climate change.

We will, wherever possible, use new technologies in doing our business … and also encourage those with which we do business to do the same. Read more »

You’ve probably heard about ‘going green’ or reducing your carbon footprint, but what does that actually mean and how do you know what your carbon footprint is? Well, it’s a simple calculation away.

Go to http://www.blog.standardbank.com/carbon-calculator and see just how green you are.

Over the past few weeks we’ve heard a lot about climate change and the impact it is having on our planet and our lives. COP17 and the events around it have highlighted this.

There have been the doomsday folk saying all the talk is in vain. There have been the optimists who feels that we’re moving in the right direction to avert disaster. There have been the radicals who feel politics and business is standing in the way of a solution. Read more »