Abstract. If X and Y are Banach spaces, then subalgebras A ⊂ B(X) and B ⊂ B(Y ), not necessarily unital nor complete, are called standard operator algebras if they contain all finite rank operators on X and Y respectively. The peripheral spectrum of A ∈ A is the set σπ(A) = {λ ∈ σ(A) : |λ| = max z∈σ(A) |z|} of spectral values of A of maximum modulus, and a map ϕ : A → B is called peripherally-multiplicative if it satisfies the equation σπ(ϕ(A) • ϕ(B)) = σπ(AB) for all A, B ∈ A. We show that any peripherally-multiplicative and surjective map ϕ : A → B, neither assumed to be linear nor continuous, is a bijective bounded linear operator such that either ϕ or −ϕ is multiplicative or anti-multiplicative. This holds in particular for the algebras of finite rank operators or of compact operators on X and Y and extends earlier results of Molnár. If, in addition, σπ(ϕ(A0)) = −σπ(A0) for some A0 ∈ A then ϕ is either multiplicative, in which case X is isomorphic to Y , or anti-multiplicative, in which case X is isomorphic to Y * . Therefore, if X ∼ = Y * then ϕ is multiplicative, hence an algebra isomorphism, while if X ∼ = Y , then ϕ is anti-multiplicative, hence an algebra anti-isomorphism.