Standard Bank Group Limited - Annual General Meeting

Standard Bank Group Limited - Annual General Meeting                            
Standard Bank Group Limited                                                     
(Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa)                                  
(Registration number 1969/017128/06)                                            
South African Share Code: SBK Namibian Share Code: SNB                          
ISIN: ZAE000057378                                                              
("Standard Bank Group")                                                         
Annual General Meeting 24 May 2006                                              
Standard Bank Group is pleased to announce the following in relation to the     
Annual General Meeting held today.                                              
Chief Executive Jacko Maree made the following comments regarding key features  
of the group"s performance for the first four months of 2006 in comparison with 
the same period for 2005:                                                       
Revenues across the group show healthy growth, both in net interest income and  
non-interest revenue. Net interest income reflects the benefit of the continued 
momentum of strong growth in loans and advances which is more than compensating 
for margin compression. All categories of non-interest income are growing       
strongly and in particular trading revenues from international sources reflect a
substantial improvement.                                                        
With respect to credit impairment charges, a substantial increase is evident.   
This is not due to any noticeable deterioration in credit quality, but arises   
from the non-recurrence of the 2005 credit recoveries in corporate and          
investment banking portfolios, combined with normal performing portfolio        
provisions on a fast growing mortgage book and a higher proportion of credit    
card advances which typically incur higher credit losses. All of these changes  
are as anticipated by the group.                                                
Shareholders are referred to the Liberty Life market update on 22 May 2006      
wherein it was stated that "good operational performance together with buoyant  
investment markets to the end of the first quarter had a positive impact on BEE 
normalised headline earnings per share and BEE normalised embedded value per    
share" and provisional results from Liberty Life for this period reflect an     
improved contribution to group earnings.                                        
The group"s financial objectives for 2006 are a normalised* return on equity of 
24%, growth in normalised* headline earnings per share of inflation (CPIX) plus 
10 percentage points, a credit loss ratio within 0.75% and a cost-to-income     
ratio of 55.5% or better. All of these objectives were achieved for the first   
four months of 2006.                                                            
*Normalised results include adjustments for certain accounting conventions under
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) that distort the group"s     
results from an economic perspective. The adjustments are defined in the group"s
recently published 2005 annual report and relate to the legal substance of the  
group"s Black Ownership Initiative implemented in 2004 and from 2005, the impact
of group shares held for the risk and reward of Liberty policyholders.          
Johannesburg                                                                    
24 May 2006                                                                     
Sponsor                                                                         
Standard Bank                                                                   
Date: 24/05/2006 09:57:43 AM Supplied by www.sharenet.co.za                     
Produced by the JSE SENS Department