In an effort to boost profitability, Standard Chartered has announced new business plans to further sharpen its focus on wealth management and investment banking.
Standard Chartered announced fresh plans to focus its resources on its wealth and retail banking (WRB) as well as corporate and investment banking (CIB) business, according to an announcement in its third quarter financial results. This is part of efforts to «deliver sustainably higher returns».
Within WRB, the bank will invest around $1.5 billion over five years in relationship managers and investment advisors, wealth solutions, and enhanced advisory, cross-border and digital capabilities. This is double the amount of its prior plans.
And in CIB, the bank will sharpen its focus on serving the cross-border needs of larger global corporate and financial institution clients across Asia, Africa and the Middle East while reducing the number of clients that do not play to its strengths. It will look to increase income from financial institution clients to around 60 percent of CIB over the medium term and grow cross-border income to around 70 percent.
Potential Sales
In addition, Standard Chartered is also exploring the possibility of selling all or part of a «small number of businesses where the strategic rationale is not sufficiently compelling» to focus resources on the cross-border needs of CIB and affluent WRB clients.
The new plans are expected to take effect over the next 18 to 24 months.
«These actions will further simplify our business and help us to generate higher quality growth and improve our return on tangible equity (RoTE) over the medium term,» said Standard Chartered group CEO Bill Winters. «We are increasing both our 2026 RoTE target from 12 percent to approaching 13 percent, and our shareholder distribution target from at least $5 billion to at least $8 billion from 2024 to 2026.»
