The private banking arm enjoyed a 23 per cent rise, part of a broad-based improved set of results for the group.

Standard Chartered’s private banking arm logged a 23 per cent year-on-year rise in income for the first three months of this year, outperforming the gains made by the group as a whole.

The UK-listed bank, which has been through testing times in recent years, logged $144 million in Q1 for private banking, against $130 million in the previous quarter and $117 million a year earlier, it said yesterday. 

“The [private banking] business continues to attract new senior relationship managers and gathered over $700 million net new money in the first quarter,” Standard Chartered said.

"This encouraging start to the year shows that we are firmly on the path laid out in February that will take us above an 8 per cent return on equity in the medium term. We are determined to pass that milestone as soon as we can in a safe and sustainable manner, while continuing to improve our service to our new and existing clients," Bill Winters, group chief executive, said:

Across the whole of Standard Chartered, underlying profit before tax of $1.3 billion rose 20 per cent; it logged a statutory profit before tax of $1.2 billion.

Standard Chartered said it has achieved 95 per cent of its four-year $2.9 billion cost-efficiency target with nine months to go.