Standard Chartered chalks up a record £3.7bn

Emerging markets-focused bank Standard Chartered today revealed record profits with a 19% rise to $6.1 billion (£3.7 billion) as it fired on all cylinders and bad debts fell.

The bank said it expects a bill for $180 million from the UK Treasury under Chancellor George Osborne's new bank levy despite the fact that it makes 95% of its profits outside this country. "We are quite clear that we do not wish to leave the UK," said finance director Richard Meddings. "But we have to keep a close eye on evolving regulation."

Chief executive Peter Sands accused regulators of failing to act concertedly around the globe. He said: "Rather than seeing increasingly global coordination and consistency of regulation, we are seeing increased fragmentation and unilateral action."

The bank raised $5 billion through a rights issue last October and now has one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry.

Sands said while the bank is cautious about the economic outlook for much of the world he still expects to deliver double-digit growth in 2011 and had seen record income and profits in January.
He also warned that the bank is experiencing a war for talent. "There's intense competition for the best people in many of our markets."

Meddings said a quarter of its 85,000 workforce is employed in China and India, where wage inflation in banking is well ahead of price inflation. "We are seen both as a very good place to work but also a great source of talent for our rivals," he said. Standard Chartered added 7000 staff last year with 4000 of them in the retail bank.

Bad debt writedowns dropped from $2 billion to $883 million. The dividend for the year rises from 63.61 cents to 69.15 cents a share. The shares were up 51½p to 1669p.