Standard Chartered profits rise 19%

Hong Kong: Standard Chartered, Britain’s second-largest bank by market value, forecast an eighth successive year of record net income after reporting a 19% jump in first-half profit.

“We’ve got income up, profit up, deposits up, lending up, dividend up,” chief executive Peter Sands, 49, said on a call with journalists yesterday. We have a “somewhat different story to tell to other banks — we’re growing, we’re hiring, we’re delivering profit growth,” he said.

Net income climbed to $2.57bn (€1.81bn) for the six months ended June 30, from $2.15bn a year earlier, according to a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange Wednesday. That beat the $2.38bn median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.