Standard Chartered Bank has announced a 58 percent drop in first-quarter profits. The news will certainly not be warmly welcomed by the largest shareholder, Singapore's Temasek Holdings.
Income from Private Banking was meagre at $118 million, down 22 percent year-on-year, or down 3 percent on the final quarter of 2015. The bank said that adverse market conditions continued to impact investor sentiment, particularly in Wealth Management and equity linked products.
The emerging market focused bank said however it continues to gain underlying momentum with net new money of $0.5 billion added in the first quarter, building on the $0.3 billion added in 2015.
Challenging Environment
«Although trading conditions in the first quarter remained challenging, we continue to make good progress on our strategic objectives. The management team is in place, we are taking action to improve recent income trends, managing costs tightly, progressing on key investments, making early progress on the exit of the liquidation portfolio, and maintaining strong levels of capital and liquidity,» said Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive.
The bank also said that given the challenging market conditions it expects Group performance to remain subdued in 2016.
