Standard Bank Commodity-Linker Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) now available on the etfSA Investor SchemeTM Platform

The etfSA website and investment platform (http://www.etfsa.co.za/) now enables investors to transact in the Commodity-Linker ETNs, offered by Standard Bank Group Limited. These securities provide direct exposure to precious metal prices in international markets and trade in rands on the JSE as listed securities.

Mike Brown, Managing Director of etfSA, comments that “commodities offer a prime means of diversification and limit the risk in investor portfolios. The history of commodity prices providing a hedge against adverse conditions in other investment assets is well documented and investors should consider an exposure directly to commodities as part of their hedge strategy in balanced portfolios.”

The Standard Bank Commodity-Linkers invest directly in precious metals through international futures markets, but the investor is issued a spot instrument, traded on the JSE, without the necessity of trading themselves in the underlying commodity future. The inconvenience of margin calls and roll overs, which are particular to futures trading are avoided.

The Standard Bank commodity products are:

The investors earn their total returns in Commodity-Linker ETNs from four sources:

· the returns from the price changes in the near dated futures contract in the commodity.

· the interest rate (US dollars) earned from the margin posted for the commodity futures contracts.

· the return earned from changes in the US dollar/SA rand exchange rate

· the yield from the roll-out-rebalancing earned from converting the current futures contract to a more distant futures contract.

Commodity-Linker ETNs are classified as “inward listed securities” by the SA Reserve Bank and so individuals and corporates can invest in them without any impact on their foreign exchange allocation limits. Institutional investors have to report holdings and trades as part of their foreign allowance limits.