Standard Chartered notched up a 10th successive rise in annual profit with a 1% gain that was capped by the bank’s big fine for breaking US sanctions on Iran and rising regulatory costs.
London-listed Standard Chartered, which has benefited from Asia’s growth through the last
decade, said new regulations including tougher liquidity and capital rules and a UK bank tax were costing it “well north” of $500 million a year.
Many banks have said extra global regulations, brought in to make them safer after the 2008 financial crisis, are hurting profitability and could restrict their lending. But very few have quantified the impact on their bottom line.
A European Union proposal to cap bankers’ bonuses at double their salary was also a worry, the bank said.
“We are concerned about it because we are a global bank and 97% of our staff are outside the EU and we’re concerned about our ability to be competitive in attracting and retaining talent,” chief executive Peter Sands said.
Standard Chartered said it had cut its 2012 bonus pool by 7% from a year before to $1.43 billion, after it was fined $667 million by US regulators for breaching sanctions related to Iran and three other countries.