Minimum salaries people earn at South Africa’s biggest banks

Although the remuneration of top banking executives often draws the most attention, determining how much the lowest earners earn is equally, if not more, important.

South Africa’s banks are some of the country’s biggest and best-paying employers. Even on the lower end, Capitec employs over 16,600 people. Standard Bank employs over 50,000 (including Liberty) in all geographies.

With hundreds of branches across the country, company histories that go back decades, and trillions of assets under management, banks are attractive employers to both low- and highly-skilled workers.

The promise of high-paying jobs is no small part of why people often jump at the opportunity to work for these corporations.

Although executive remuneration is often the subject of media attention, with top bank members earning substantial salaries, the lower end of the salary scale is just as, if not more, important.

Daily Investor spoke to South Africa’s biggest banks to confirm their minimum-salaried workers’ minimum salaries in 2025.

Importantly, it should be noted that banks, like many other major businesses, will often hire contract workers to perform tasks like IT support, security, cleaning and maintenance.

Since these workers aren’t on salary, their pay isn’t included, and they could easily be earning far below the minimum wage.

For added context, from 1 March 2025, South Africa’s minimum wage increased from R27.58 to R28.79 for each ordinary hour worked. If that person works a 40-hour work week, they earn around R55,276.80 annually.

Absa

“As a leading pan-African financial services group, our remuneration ambition is to be locally relevant and competitive,” Absa told Daily Investor.

“The minimum fixed remuneration levels paid in each of our jurisdictions are well above minimum wage determinations and are appropriately benchmarked for relativity to our peers.”

The bank explained that it continues to focus on ensuring appropriate minimum remuneration levels in all of its markets.

“In 2024, we applied a minimum cost to company level of R230,000, which is higher than the national minimum and living wage and is competitive relative to the disclosed minimum cost to company levels in our banking peer group.”

“Our minimum annual cost to company in South Africa increased to R250,000 (up 8.7%) with effect from 1 April 2025.” That works out to R20,833.33 per month, compared to around R19,166.67 the year before.

“It is also worth noting that Absa’s eKhaya Colleague Share Scheme delivered R114 million in value to colleagues in its first year through the distribution of its first annual dividend in May 2024.”

“The Absa eKhaya Colleague Share Scheme was launched on 1 September 2023, providing employees in South Africa with an equity ownership interest in the Absa Group.”

Standard Bank

Standard Bank explained that starting from March 2025, its Remuneration Committee approved a 5.5% overall increase to fixed remuneration across the group.

The bank said this reflects the current inflation levels in its operating countries. It also approved a 3.9% average increase in cost-to-company packages for managers and executives in South Africa.

For unionised employees in South Africa, a 5.8% average increase in fixed pay was implemented, and the minimum banking guaranteed package was increased to R258,390 per annum from R244,920.

That works out to a salary of R21,532.50 per month for 2025, compared to R20,410 in 2024. This means Standard Bank has the highest minimum wage of South Africa’s big five banks.

Nedbank

Nedbank’s minimum pay for full-time permanent employees, as per its 2023 Integrated Report, was R225,000 for most of 2024 (from April 2024). For 2025, the minimum pay increased to R240,000 per annum.

The lowest-salaried worker at Nedbank earned R18,750 monthly in 2024/2024, which increased to R20,000 in 2025/2026.

FNB

FNB confirmed to Daily Investor that salary increases averaged 6%, with an increase of 6.2% for unionised staff.

From 1 August 2024, the minimum wage for FirstRand was increased to R215,000 per annum for banking roles and R185,000 per annum for non-banking roles, “which is well above the legislated minimum wage”.

That means that banking staff earn a minimum of R17,916.67 per month, while non-banking staff earn a minimum of R15,416.67 monthly.

According to FirstRand’s 2023 remuneration report, the minimum guaranteed package for banking roles from 1 August 2023 was increased to R198,500 annually. That comes out to R16,541.67 a month.

FirstRand’s next cycle of salary increases will be reported in August 2025, in accordance with our annual reporting cycle.

Capitec

Although Capitec did not confirm the exact minimum remuneration being paid to its employees, it has improved its remuneration.

“At Capitec, we are committed to fair and responsible remuneration as part of our broader employee experience,” said Francois Viviers, group executive of marketing and communications at Capitec.

“We believe in investing in our people, which is why our remuneration philosophy focuses on fairness and equity, with a strong emphasis on performance-based rewards. We continuously track pay equity to ensure a fair approach.”

We are proud of the progress we’ve made in this area. In 2021, 9% of Capitec’s employees earned below R180,000 annually. Today, that figure has decreased to 2%, primarily comprising our graduates and learnership interns.

Additionally, the bank significantly raised the earnings of employees previously in the R180,000 to R250,000 bracket. In fact, 62% of its employees now earn between R250,000 and R500,000 annually, up from just 18% in 2021.

“These improvements are part of our ongoing commitment to provide not only fair pay but also career development opportunities.”

“Through initiatives like our internal career mobility programme, succession planning, and Graduate Development Programme, we’re committed to helping our staff grow within the company and achieve long-term success.”

The table below compares the annual salaries of South Africa’s big five banks in 2024 and 2025, as shown in the comments provided to Daily Investor or based on their financial reports.

This article was first published by Daily Investor and is reproduced with permission.