Emerging markets and Asian focused Standard Chartered has posted a 46 percent drop in pre-tax profit after a fall in income in the first half. CEO Bill Winters says the performance has improved.
The London listed bank reported an underlying pre-tax profit of $994m for the six months to June 30, down from $1.8bn in the same period in 2015.
However in a sign that the tough decisions taken by the CEO Bill Winters were beginning to yield some results, the bank reported an improvement in bad debts, posting impairment losses of of $1.1bn which compared favourably against $1.7bn from a year ago.
Wealth Management Commitment
Income from Private Banking of $261 million was down 10 percent year-on-year but was 7 percent higher than in the previous half.
Demand for Wealth Management products, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore, remained subdued as investor sentiment was impacted by volatility in particular in the renminbi and in China equity markets.
Private Banking is investing $250 million to upgrade underlying technology and core banking platform, increasing the number of Relationship Managers (RM's) and added almost 500 relationships in the first half.
Adding Senior Bankers
«We have made good progress in the year since I joined, strengthening our bank, becoming more efficient and investing in our future. By maintaining our financial strength and completing our transformation we will be able to weather near-term volatility, fix our legacy issues, capture significant underlying opportunities as they arise, and, in time, generate returns above our cost of capital. The environment remains challenging but we are getting on with the plan,» said Winters.
finews.asia has reported on several recent moves by Standard Chartered to bolster their private banking business units in Hong Kong and Singapore as they added senior wealth professionals to the business.
