It is 1991.Kampala Road is paved with tarmac. The buildings lining both sides of the road are mostly single-story structures, housing modest businesses such as video libraries, black-and-white photo studios, hairdressing salons, and even dairy shops.On one side of this road – where Mapeera House and Kampala Boulevard Building now sit – stand two buildings whose walls were blown away by explosions in the 1979 war that resulted in the overthrow of President Idi Amin, leaving openings large enough for people to walk through.Businesses along other roads such as Nkrumah and Nasser are struggling to attract customers as the routes are riddled with gaping potholes. It takes three hours to travel a 45km distance between Kampala and Lugazi town by car – not because of traffic jams, but because of many potholes along the road.Caption: A section of Kampala City in the early 1990s, when the Uganda economy was wobbly.Everyday goods are still in short supply. The once-bustling industrial towns of Mbale and Jinja are quiet as factories closed a few years earlier. Production of coffee, once a major source of foreign exchange, has significantly dropped.Just five years ago, a band of armed Ugandans shot its way into power and is now struggling to reestablish peace nationwide and repair an economy broken by years of conflict and mismanagement.A large part of the country is calm but, in the north, guns are still blazing, drowning out hope for peace and recovery. Hundreds of workers have been put out of work by a package of economic recovery reforms.A banking crisis that would later bring down five indigenous financial institutions and leave some international banks limping on is unfolding.“We started to see international banks closing branches in major towns and concentrating in Kampala,” Michael Wakabi, who was a journalist in his 20s at the time, says. “Some of these towns were former industrial towns that lost factories during Amin’s time and were now in bad shape.”To make matters worse—at the time, Uganda is not only experiencing some of the highest poverty levels in its history, but also the highest infection levels from a strange, virulent disease – HIV/AIDS. With families losing breadwinners to the new disease and the war in the north raging on, Ugandans are unsure of the future.“People had lost hope, and saw no need of long-term planning,” Wakabi remembers. “My father worked at Kakira Sugar Works, and I would see company trucks taking home three or five bodies of workers who had died of HIV/AIDS. The rebels were active in the north and, travelling there was dangerous.”Out Grindlays, enter Standard Bank GroupYet, in the same year, 1991/92, Standard Bank Group (Stanbic) acquires Grindlays Bank of East Africa and enters the Ugandan market that many companies are unwilling to venture into, seeing an opportunity to contribute to the recovery and growth of a country it was determined to make its home.“Unless you were a long-term thinker, you would not invest in Uganda at that time,” Wakabi says. “Many companies saw no future here. But Stanbic knew things would settle and that Uganda needed financial services to recover and grow.”To understand the decision by the bank to enter a fragile market at the time, it helps to appreciate the institution that made it. Standard Bank’s history on the African continent stretches back more than 160 years.Across different eras, economic cycles and political environments, the Group has often expanded not into places where success was guaranteed, but into markets where it believed long-term fundamentals justified patience and commitment.As Estranelle Lubbe, Head of Heritage Governance at Standard Bank Group, observes, Uganda’s story fits neatly within that tradition.“When you study the Group’s history, you find a recurring willingness to think beyond current conditions and focus on long-term potential,” Lubbe says. “Uganda represented exactly that kind of opportunity. The institution saw a country rebuilding itself and believed it could contribute to that journey.”Redefining Standard Bank’s roleIn 2002, the Government implemented one of the most significant economic reforms of the time, which, among others, saw the privatisation of Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB).The decision generated national debate, attracted intense public interest and fundamentally transformed the country’s banking landscape. For Stanbic, it represented an opportunity that would redefine its role in Uganda’s economy.Until then, Stanbic had largely been viewed as a niche institution, drawing heavily on the legacy inherited from Grindlays. Its acquisition of UCB changed that almost overnight, enabling the bank to participate more deeply in the country’s development.It was during this time that Stanbic crystalized an idea that continues to define it today – Uganda is Home. We Drive Her Growth. Many companies adopt purpose statements, but few are tested by them.Patrick Mweheire, who later became Stanbic Bank Uganda’s first Ugandan Chief Executive before assuming broader leadership responsibilities within Standard Bank Group, believes that the significance of the statement lay in the obligations it created for the institution rather than the words themselves.“If Uganda is truly your home, then your relationship with the country cannot be transactional,” he reflects. “A home is somewhere you invest, a place whose success becomes intertwined with your own. The purpose challenged us to think beyond banking products and focus on how we could contribute to Uganda’s broader growth story.”Financing productive sectorsThirty-five years on, Stanbic is one of the country’s leading financiers of productive sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, trade and energy.Francis Karuhanga welcomes Mumba Kalifungwa as the new Chief Executive of Stanbic Bank Uganda at the start of 2025. Karuhanga now serves as Regional Chief Executive for Central & Southern AfricaAlong the way, the bank has broken financial barriers for women entrepreneurs, brought the unbanked rural folks into the formal banking systems through unsecured, low-interest loans to savings organisations, helped businesses transition from informal to formal enterprises, and equipped young people with entrepreneurship and innovation skills.And by so doing, the bank has transformed the lives of segments of the population that Uganda needs to drive and sustain growth – women, youth and farmers.One of Stanbic’s most interesting features is that, as the country evolves, the bank evolves alongside it.Francis Karuhanga, Regional Chief Executive for Central and Southern Africa at Standard Bank Group, and a former Chief Executive of Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited, sees this linkage as central to understanding the institution’s history.“What makes the story compelling is that it mirrors Uganda’s own development journey,” he says. “The bank grew because Uganda was growing. Every major phase in our evolution corresponded with a broader phase in the country’s economic progress. It has always been a shared story rather than two separate ones.”That shared story has been carried forward by successive generations of leadership. During its first decade in Uganda between 1991 and 2000, the institution was overseen by a succession of Country Chief Executives from Standard Bank Group, including AB Myers, Dave Edgar, John Murray, John Miller, and Anthony Klensmitch, who laid the groundwork for the bank’s early operations.In 2001 the lender received its first African Chief Executive, Kitili Mbathi, who steered the bank through the all-important acquisition and merger process of the Uganda Commercial Bank. He would later be succeeded by Philip Odera who was in charge from 2007 to 2014 before being succeeded Patrick Mweheire—the first Ugandan to be trusted to helm the lender, followed by Anne Juuko—its first female Chief Executive, Samuel Mwogeza—who served in the interim transition after Juuko until the substantive appointment of Mumba Kenneth Kalifungwa in 2025.Different chief executives have confronted different challenges, from integration and expansion to digital transformation and sustainability but guided by a single purpose: driving Uganda’s growth.Kalifungwa views the anniversary less as a celebration of longevity than an affirmation of conviction. “Thirty-five years ago, our predecessors made a choice that required confidence in Uganda’s future,” he says. “Looking back, that confidence was justified. Looking ahead, our responsibility is to continue earning the trust that has been built over three and a half decades and to remain a meaningful partner in Uganda’s next phase of growth.”A Shared Journey of TransformationThe future may present opportunities every bit as significant as those that existed in the 1990s. Uganda stands on the threshold of major economic shifts driven by industrialization, energy development, deeper regional integration and demographic expansion.The questions confronting policymakers today are different from those that dominated the early years of recovery, but they revolve around a familiar theme: how to convert potential into prosperity. For Mark Ociiti Ongom, Chief Executive of Stanbic Uganda Holding Limited, this is what makes the milestone worth reflecting on in the first place.“The real story isn’t that a bank has been operating in Uganda for 35 years,” he says. “The real story is that Uganda has undergone one of the most remarkable transformations on the continent during that period. Stanbic’s journey only becomes meaningful when viewed alongside the country’s journey. That is why the purpose continues to resonate.”Perhaps that is the most interesting lesson from the past three and a half decades. The story begins with a bank entering a recovering economy at a moment when many observers remained uncertain about its prospects. It ends, at least for now, with that economy standing among Africa’s more resilient growth stories and the bank having grown into its largest financial institution.Thirty-five years ago, Standard Bank Group looked at Uganda and made a choice. It chose commitment over caution, partnership over distance and long-term possibility over short-term uncertainty.Today, one can debate growth projections, economic forecasts and the challenges that still lie ahead. But the proposition that brought Standard Bank Group to Uganda three and a half decades ago appears harder to dispute with each passing year: Uganda was worth believing in.And some of the most consequential investments are not made in markets alone, but in futures. Wakabi agrees. “The decision Standard Bank Group made to come to Uganda in 1991 showed that it was a long-term thinker,” he says. “I want to believe it still is. The new Government had laid out its reconstruction plan, and the bank bought into it. And here we are.”The post How Stanbic made Uganda home 35 years ago appeared first on The Insider.