Standard Chartered H1 net profit up 8.4 per cent

Standard Chartered said Wednesday its year-on-year profit for the first half of 2014 was up slightly at 8.4 per cent, but confirmed it faces fresh US fines over alleged breaches of money-laundering regulations. Net profit stood at $2.31 billion for the six months ending June 30, up from $2.13 billion in the same period last year, though the London-based and Asia-focused bank saw increasing losses on loans and a weak financial market affect its operations. The bank's profit before tax was down 20 per cent at $3.27 billion from $4.09 billion last year, with impairment losses on loans seeing a loss of $846 million increased from last year's loss of $730 million in the same period. Operating income fell almost five per cent to $9.27 billion from $9.75 billion in the previous year. ‘Our performance in the first half of 2014 is clearly disappointing. It is not what we strive for and not what our investors expect,’ the group's chief executive Peter Sands said in the filing. ‘We have completely reorganised the Group, made a number of disposals, re-worked our segment strategies, and redirected capital and investment spend,’ Sands said of the first half, adding that 2014 will be a ‘challenging’ year. The company said it saw a loss of $126 million before taxation for Korea where the bank announced the sale of its consumer finance and savings bank businesses, according to AFP.