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Hong Kong /Â AFP
Standard Chartered has announced on Tuesday first quarter profits slumped 64 percent year-on-year as revenue for the period also plunged, following a turbulent 2015 in which the troubled bank announced it would axe thousands of jobs.
The Asia-focussed bank said profits for the first three months fell to $539 million from $1.49 billion in the same period last year.
Revenue also missed estimates at $3.35 billion — short of the $3.49 billion predicted by
analysts polled by Bloomberg News and slumping 24 percent compared with the first quarter a year earlier.
Earnings from corporate clients fell 27 percent to $1.85 billion, while income from retail clients also saw a drop of almost 20 percent to $1.21 billion.
But in a statement filed to the Hong Kong stock exchange the bank remained upbeat despite the results.
“Although trading conditions in the first quarter remained challenging, we continue to make good progress on our strategic objectives,†group chief executive Bill Winters said.
Like many global banks, Standard Chartered is battling turmoil in global financial markets that has seen stocks and commodities plunge.
In February it said it had swung to a surprise $2.36 billion net loss in 2015 against a backdrop of global market volatility, restructuring costs and bad loans, adding that its 2016 performance would remain “subduedâ€.
It announced in November that it was refocusing on “affluent
retail clients†rather than corporate and institutional banking businesses and would exit or restructure $100 billion of assets and axe 15,000 jobs.
The bank also said executive directors did not receive bonus payments for the year.
Standard Chartered PLC is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London. It operates a network of more than 1,200 branches and outlets (including subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures) across more than 70 countries.
and employs around 87,000 people.
It is a universal bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite its UK base, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 90% of its profits come from Asia,Africa and the Middle East.