Standard Chartered CEO ‘absolutely’ pleased with pace of turnaround, but says there is more to do
- Lender has reshaped itself around cross-border transactions, affluent client businesses
- Hopes to draw a line under regulatory scrutiny
Bill Winters, the Standard Chartered chief executive, says he is “absolutely” happy with progress the emerging markets lender has made and believes it is heading in the right direction.
Nearly four years since he took the top job at the bank, Standard Chartered is profitable, has a less risky loan portfolio and has dramatically revamped its financial crime controls as it faced pressure from regulators in the United States, the United Kingdom and other parts of the world.
But, the 57-year-old executive continues to hear from critics about not hitting a bank target for a return on tangible equity of 8 per cent by the end of last year.
“You can explain it to the end of time, but what we said at the time was in this particular scenario, which has the economy growing at a certain rate and interest rates moving at this trajectory and currencies moving at this way, etc, in that scenario we get to 8 per cent – if we do all of that great stuff,” Winters tells the South China Morning Post.
“We did all the good stuff, but the economy grew at half that pace, the [yuan] devalued, the pace of US interest rates was two years slower than we anticipated,” he says. “You can criticise us for forecasting badly, but, at the time in 2015, we were criticised for being too cautious. It turned out we were not cautious enough.”
During the financial crisis, Standard Chartered was one of the world’s better-performing banks, but the shine came off as emerging markets weakened in subsequent years and regulators accused the bank of having faulty financial crime controls in 2012.