Standard Chartered Plc has announced a rise of nine per cent in its income and profit to $9.51bn and $3.95bn respectively for the first half of 2012.

A statement by the bank on Friday said it represented a tenth consecutive record first half of profit growth.

The statement said, “The diversity of our income from a range of countries, products and services continues to underpin our success. Growth in our footprint markets of Asia, Africa and the Middle East remains robust and our extensive network across the major global trade and investment flows continues to provide a key source of competitive advantage.

“We remain strongly differentiated. One example is our ability to step up investment to grab the long term growth opportunities we see across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. We are increasing investment in infrastructure, in new branches, and in technology, building out our deposit-gathering network. We aim to have 100 branches in China and India by our full year results next year.”

The bank said it had already met Basel III capital requirements with a Core Tier 1 of 11.6 per cent. It added that the bank continued to benefit from being the only major international bank to be upgraded by all three rating agencies since the onset of the financial crisis.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Bank, Mr. Peter Sands, said, “These results represent a very positive start to the year. Our record of consistent delivery is testament to the resilience of the bank’s business model, and underscores the sheer diversity of the income engines we have. These results are simply our tenth consecutive first half of record profits.”

Source: Punch