Standard Chartered has said it will double investment in its wealth unit while paring back retail banking, as it lifted performance targets and said it will go further in reshaping the bank to try and meet those goals.
According to a Reuters’ report, the bank said on Wednesday that its income this year will grow by around 10 per cent, up from a previous estimate of towards seven per cent. The lender also said it plans to return at least $8 billion to shareholders over 2024-2026, up from $5 billion.
The report noted that StanChart, like rival HSBC, is restructuring its business to focus more on affluent individual customers and international companies that are likely to yield more in fees for the bank.
It said it will double spending on its wealth business, investing $1.5 billion over five years in relationship managers and investment advisers. That will be funded by cutting more of its mass retail business, following the example of HSBC that has greatly reduced its retail banking operations in Western markets.
StanChart’s shares rose by 2.7 per cent in London after the results, as it joined European peers in making robust progress on sustaining profits even as rates fall. The lender’s shares have soared 35 per cent this year, outpacing HSBC which has risen 15 per cent.
StanChart said it was exploring the opportunity to sell “all or part of a small number of businesses” that no longer make strategic sense.
“This will be a plan unfolding over 18-24 months so there are no set decisions taken yet,” Diego De Giorgi, group chief financial officer, told Reuters when asked which markets the bank might scale back in.
The lender said its third quarter pretax profit was $1.72 billion, above an average analyst forecast of $1.49 billion and more than double the year earlier number of $633 million when it took a nearly $1 billion hit from its exposure to China.