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FirstRandSouth Africa
Active
This profile is actively maintained
Last update: 2025-04-24 14:22:59
FirstRand Bank logo. Photo: FirstRand
Active
This profile is actively maintained
Last update: 2025-04-24 14:22:59
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About
| Website | https://www.firstrand.co.za/ |
| Headquarters |
4 Merchant Place, Cnr. Fredman Drive & Rivonia Road, 4th Floor 2196
Sandton
South Africa
|
| CEO/chair |
Mary Vilakazi CEO |
| Supervisor | |
| Ownership |
listed on JSE Limited & Namibian Stock Exchange
FirstRand's largest shareholder is the South African state-owned Public Investment Corporation (16.1%). The bank's complete shareholder structure can be accessed here. |
| Subsidiaries |
Rand Merchant Bank – South Africa
|
FirstRand Limited (also referred to as FirstRand Group) was established in April 1998. FirstRand is a financial services group and one of the big four South African retail, commercial and investment banks. FirstRand owns brands like First National Bank (FNB), Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), Ashburton Investments, and Wesbank. The group has representation elsewhere in Africa, including Nigeria, as well as the United Kingdom, Dubai, Australia, China, and India. The bank signed the Equator Principles in 2009.
Sustainability
Commitments
Policies
Voluntary standards
FirstRand's most important sustainability commitments can be found at the website sections listed below.
FirstRand has committed itself to the following voluntary standards:
Dodgy Deals
FirstRand is linked to a number of companies and projects that BankTrack considers controversial (so called Dodgy Deals), e.g. as a current or past financier or through an expression of interest. The profiles below provide more details on the nature of FirstRand's link to these deals.
Projects / Companies
Finance type
Year
News
BankTrack
Partners
Blog
External
Resources
Documents
Accountability
Grievances
FirstRand operates a group ethics line reporting facility which can be accessed here.
FirstRand is an Equator Principles signatory. While the Equator Principles have no official grievance mechanism, complaints relating to this bank's financing of Equator Principles projects can be filed through our own website www.equator-complaints.org.
This page evaluates FirstRand's responses to instances of alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, raised by civil society organisations. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but covers selected impacts raised by BankTrack and other civil society partners since 2016. For the full scoring methodology, see here. For more information about BankTrack's evaluation of bank responses to human rights impacts, see the 2021 report "Actions speak louder: assessing bank responses to human rights violations".
Impacts reviewed
Responded?
Total score
Response
Action
Monitoring
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Banks and Climate
Banks and Climate
Partner organisation Reclaim Finance tracks the coal, oil and gas policies of financial institutions, including banks, in their Coal Policy Tool (CPT) and the Oil and Gas Policy Tracker (OGPT). BankTrack works closely with Reclaim Finance and endorses their policy assessments. Find further details on their assessment of FirstRand’s fossil fuel policy below.
Banks and Human Rights
Banks and Human Rights
BankTrack assessed FirstRand in its 2021 Human Rights Benchmark Africa, where it achieved 1 point out of 14 and was ranked as a 'laggard'. More information is detailed in the "Accountability" section of this profile
Human Rights Benchmark Africa 2021
BankLast update
Country
Score
Ranking
Details
FirstRand
ZAF
1
Laggard
1
0
Explanation
Laggard
Follower
Front runner
Leader
0 - 3.5 points
4 - 5.5 points
6 - 8.5 points
9 - 14 points
For more details see this page.
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