Standard Chartered said today it is to raise £3.3 billion ($5.2 billion) in a rights issue as new global capital rules come into effect. The size of the capital raising is somewhat less than the £5 billion to £7 billion figure as given by the Financial Times, citing unnamed sources.

The bank’s shares in Hong Kong were suspended from trading today pending an announcement relating to a corporate action, according to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Trading was expected to resume later today at the UK-listed bank, which is parent of The Standard Chartered Private Bank.

Recently unveiled new Basel bank capital rules are taking effect over the next few years, designed to bolster the strength of financial institutions and avoid a repeat of the recent credit crisis.

The rights issue comes at a price of 1,280 pence per share, StanChart said, which represents a discount of 32.93 per cent to the closing price on 12 October.

"We see many opportunities for growth across Asia, Africa and the Middle East as the world continues to rebalance between East and West. We are launching this rights issue to ensure that we can continue our strong record of organic growth and take full advantage of these opportunities, while at the same time being prepared for likely increases in capital requirements resulting from Basel III [capital rules] implementation. We believe this approach will create clear long-term value for our shareholders, and underpin the financial strength of the group," said Peter Sands, group chief executive.

Meanwhile, in an interim statement giving no hard numbers on the bank's performance, StanChart said: "Wealth management fees, SME, and credit cards and personal loans are all showing an improving trend with income in the third quarter ahead of the first half run rates." 

StanChart is seen as one of the UK’s stronger banks; it owns the lion’s share of its revenues outside the UK, however. It has not needed to be bailed out by the UK taxpayer, contrasting with UK lenders such as Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Temasek, the Singapore state investment agency that owns just over 19 per cent of StanChart, is understood to be planning to take up its rights in full in order to avoid a dilution of its shareholding.