Standard Chartered has become the latest London-listed bank to bring back its dividend
Standard Chartered has become the latest London-listed bank to bring back its dividend, after profits soared in the first half.
The Asia-focused lender’s decision to pay out £247 million, including a £180 million share buyback, means all of the UK’s five largest banks have resumed their dividends – a relief for beleaguered investors.
In total, they have paid out £3.6 billion between them in dividends and share buybacks for the first half of the year. Standard Chartered’s profits climbed to £1.9 billion, up 56 per cent from the first half of 2020.
Though all of the major banks – including Barclays, Natwest, Lloyds and HSBC – have reported rising profits for the first half of the year, their share prices have remained in the doldrums.
Standard Chartered’s rose 1 per cent, or 4.3p, to 441p yesterday. Though its profits were up, its income fell. Revenues have been beaten down by low interest rates, and Standard Chartered also saw income slide in its transaction banking business, which serves corporate clients. But chief executive Bill Winters was positive.
‘We believe we will soon be back on the same performance trajectory that we were on before the pandemic set us back,’ he said. Both HSBC and Standard Chartered, which are headquartered in London but make most of their money in Asia, have found themselves caught in rising tensions between the UK and China.
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