The ongoing global transition towards the development of greener technologies, along with a focus on reducing carbon emissions and environmental footprints, has prompted the mining industry to pursue greener alternatives. Bioleaching is a cost-effective and environmentally friendly technology that can be an appropriate alternative. At present, bio-oxidation of metals from ores is successfully practiced in industries; however, there is currently no bio-based process for the extraction of precious metals. Therefore, we aimed to develop a complete biological process for bioprocessing UG-2 PGM ores. The first part of the study involved bio-pretreatment to remove base metals from ores, followed by cyanogenic bioleaching of the pre-treated material. Microorganisms indigenous to a South African platinum mine were isolated and screened for their ability to produce biogenic cyanide. Four bacterial strains, namely Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas stutzeri, Pseudomonas brassicacearum, and Bacillus sp., exhibited significant bio-CN-producing capability. Among these strains, under optimized conditions, P. brassicacearum demonstrated the highest bio-CN production (14 ± 1 mg/L) at 18 hours of growth. Compared to one-step bioleaching, two-step bioleaching yielded higher mobilization of metals. Additionally, the two-step bioleaching approach was found to give higher precious metal recoveries from pre-treated material as opposed to untreated material. Amongst all bacterial strains, P. brassicacearum showed the highest metal extractions, i.e. 75.69, 18.69, 9.38, and 0.28% of Au, Pd, Rh, and Pt, respectively, at 10 g/L pulp density. The findings are encouraging and have established the foundation for creating a complete bio-based method for PGM bioprocessing from UG-2 ores.