2nd May 2018 07:01
LONDON (Alliance News) - Standard Chartered PLC on Wednesday said strong underlying income momentum, stable credit quality, and a continuing focus on cost-control delivered significant year-on-year improvement in profitability in the first quarter of 2018.
The emerging markets focused lender recorded pretax profit of USD1.19 billion for the three months to March-end, up 20% from USD990 million in the comparative year-ago quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the bank posted a pretax loss of USD113 million.
Profit, before tax and exceptional items, grew 20% to USD1.26 billion from GBP1.05 billion a year ago and USD277 million in the fourth quarter of last year.
Standard Chartered, which focuses on Asia, Africa and the Middle East, recorded an operating income of USD3.87 billion for the three month period, up from USD3.61 billion a year ago and USD3.48 billion in the final quarter of 2017.
"Income from areas where the group has been focusing attention on reinforcing differentiation since 2015, including Transaction Banking, Mortgages, Wealth Management and Deposits, has grown strongly, up 18% in aggregate," the lender said.
Net impairment charges for the quarter fell to USD191 million from USD198 million a year ago and 29% lower from USD269 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The bank's Common Equity Tier 1 ratio stood at 13.9%, up 26 basis points from December 31, as it generated profits in the quarter while risk-weighted assets were broadly unchanged.
"This encouraging start to the year shows that we are firmly on the path laid out in February that will take us above an 8% return on equity in the medium term. We are determined to pass that milestone as soon as we can in a safe and sustainable manner, while continuing to improve our service to our new and existing clients," said Chief Executive Bill Winters.
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