Why StanChart might have dropped own relocation plan
With HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan relocating from London to Hong Kong next month, there have been murmurs in the city of others who might follow suit.
This is not to confuse the move with the current gnashing of teeth over Prime Minister Gordon Brown's super tax on bankers. Geoghegan's relocation has to do with the bank recognising the importance of its Asian operations and the eastward shift of the world's economic centre of gravity.
His departure does not leave a power vacuum in the bank's London headquarters since Stephen Green, HSBC's executive chairman, will continue to preside there.
But Geoghegan's move has prompted some to wonder whether Standard Chartered might try the same wheeze. In many ways, it has more reason than HSBC since most of its operations are in Asia and unlike HSBC it has no retail network in Britain.
The bank has raised the prospect of its chief executive Peter Sands (above) moving to Asia with the Financial Services Authority in London. This would be a problem, the bank was told, since it had no executive chairman in London.