Standard Chartered will add 2,000 staff globally by the end of this year, as competitors such as HSBC and Barclays reduce headcount, Jaspal Singh Bindra, chief executive officer for Asian operations, has told Bloomberg.

The UK bank will also open ten offices in China by the end of 2011, taking its total there to over 80. StanChart earns the bulk of its revenues outside the UK and in particular, has a strong footprint in Asia.

“We’ve been growing the business,” Bindra said. “We’ve been hiring people all along, and we’ve been growing our profits as well.” He said most of the hiring would be in the emerging markets.

Wealth management income at the bank rose to $657 million in the six months to 30 June this year from $535 million a year ago, according to figures issued yesterday. The wealth management section of StanChart comes under its consumer banking division, which made in total an operating income of $3.3 billion in the half-yearly period, up from $2.912 billion 12 months ago, it said in a statement today.