The overall shape of the results drew praise.

Private banking income at Standard Chartered rose by 14 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year to $145 million, benefiting from wealth management, with positive contributions from all products, the group said yesterday. 

Across all its business lines, the UK-listed firm reported a surge in attributable profit in the third quarter of this year of $725 million, against $482 million in the previous quarter, although the figure was only slightly higher than the quarter a year ago, at $707 million.

The bank, which earns a large chunk of its revenues in Asia, the Indian sub-continent and Africa, said operating income in Q3 2019 was $3.978 billion, up from $3.724 billion a year before. Operating costs slipped to $2.501 billion from $2.511 billion. Standard Chartered’s cost/income ratio narrowed to 64.8 per cent in the latest quarter, narrowing from 68.4 per cent. The bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, a standard international measure of capital strength, was 13.5 per cent, narrowing from 14.5 per cent a year ago, it said in a statement.

Within wealth management, Q3 operating income stood at $488 million, rising by 5 per cent from a year earlier, it said. 

Explaining the wealth management results, Standard Chartered said the improved income came primarily from growth in equity and fixed income investment products, partially offset by lower bancassurance income. Retail banking clients generated 81 per cent of this income with the remainder generated by private banking clients.

“Standard Chartered’s strong third quarter is perhaps a little surprising given the disruption caused by protests in Hong Kong, the bank’s largest market.

“The 16 per cent rise in profits surpassed analysts’ predictions as a surge in corporate business pushed up income. The figures come as a boost for chief executive Bill Winters, who has come under fire recently over his generous pension allowance. These strong sets of Q3 results prove that the turnaround strategy Winters embarked on a couple of years ago is continuing to bear fruit, despite the challenges facing the global economy and the banking sector in particular," Adam Vettese, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro, said of the results.