Standard Chartered's Quarterly Profit Rises 18% as Asia-Focused Banks Rebound
April 29 2021 - 01:26AM
Dow Jones News
By Yifan Wang
Standard Chartered PLC said Thursday that its profit rose 18% in
the first quarter, as the Asia-focused bank got a boost from the
region's fast-recovering economies.
The upbeat earnings from Standard Chartered followed results
from peer HSBC Holdings PLC, which earlier this week reported a
more than doubling of its first-quarter profit, in a sign of the
strength of Asia's economic rebound from the peak of the pandemic's
impact.
Standard Chartered's first-quarter pretax underlying profit was
$1.45 billion, compared with $1.22 billion a year earlier. The
improvement was driven by sharply lower impairments, as the bank
turned more optimistic about its business momentum.
Operating income fell 9% to $3.94 billion, dragged by weaker net
interest income amid a low-interest-rate environment globally. Its
net interest margin fell 0.30 percentage point to 1.22% in the
period.
The lender said it expects impairment costs to reduce
significantly for the rest of the year, while income could start
growing again in the second half of 2021, given the broadly
stabilized net interest margin.
It reiterated its confidence in the outperformance of Asian
markets amid the global recovery from the pandemic.
"We believe that some of our larger markets will continue to
drive the global economy out of recession over the coming
quarters," the bank said.
Write to Yifan Wang at yifan.wang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 29, 2021 01:11 ET (05:11 GMT)
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