New CEO Bill Winters says the country suits its business very well
Get busy living or get busy dying. When Bill Winters was invited by the chairman of Standard Chartered Plc to join the group, the London-headquartered international banking and financial services company with a 150-year history in some of the world's most dynamic markets was on the verge of a huge restructuring.
Last year, Standard Chartered reported a $1.5 billion pretax loss, which was its first annual loss since 1989. Its underlying loan impairment soared 87 percent year-on-year to $4 billion in 2015.
Having spent 26 years with JPMorgan Chase & Co in diverse leadership roles and holding the post of co-chief executive officer of the investment bank between 2004 and 2009, the American was parachuted into Standard Chartered and was appointed as group chief executive in June 2015.
Five months later, he announced a strategic plan to "significantly re-allocate resources to change fundamentally the mix of the group toward more profitable and less capital-intensive business". Under the plan, the key areas of investment include digital banking, wealth management and renminbi services.
"We are repositioning some of our key businesses around the things where we are really good. I'm happy to say that everything we are investing, in one way or another, relates to our business in China and we remain positive on China's long-term potential," he said.
Recently, he spoke to China Daily about his new strategy for the group and his vision for the role of China market in the bank's turnaround.
The following are edited excerpts from the interview:
You've carried out some major management changes and are implementing a new strategy for the group. What do they mean to your business in China? Will you adjust your strategy in China?
The first thing I did after I joined Standard Chartered was to put a management team in place. Our intention was to allow our local offices to operate much more autonomously and directly.
We want our country managers to have the ability to really run their business locally and make the management calls on the ground, so that they are responsive to the environments in the countries in which we operate.
It's just been six months since we put that strategy in place, but I think we are already seeing a real focus on what our local clients need in major markets and positioning the rest of the bank businesses around those local opportunities.
We launched an initiative to make our business much more efficient, which has involved automating some processes and digitizing our business.
One of our four key initiatives is to invest in the continued opening up of China.
That involves a broad role of different initiatives－the Belt and Road Initiative, the internationalization of renminbi, the opening up of Chinese capital markets, and the increasing need for emerging affluent Chinese savers to have access to investment products that we may be able to identify internationally or domestically.
How do you plan to grow your business here while reducing risks?
China's growth is slower but it's still 6.5 to 7 percent, which is still very fast in such a large economy. The nature of Chinese growth suits our business very well, so we're very committed, for example, to the Belt and Road Initiative.
We operate in nearly half of the countries where the initiative is being rolled out. We as a bank have been and always will be very strong as a financier of underlying infrastructure.
That sort of initiative coming out of China is very well suited to our business strategy.
The Chinese financial system is internationalizing. As this large economy opens up to the rest of the world, we expect to play a very important role in partnership with the Chinese banks and build very strong businesses together.
What does the Belt and Road Initiative mean for Standard Chartered? What will the bank do to facilitate the implementation of this initiative?
The Belt and Road Initiative aims to boost trade and investment growth through better infrastructure connectivity across Asia, extending to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
We estimate that official financing for the initiative could potentially top $1 trillion in the next decade.
We are dedicated to becoming a leading international bank in supporting the initiative by fully making use of the bank's unique network, franchise capabilities and rich client experiences.
Among the 65 Belt and Road countries joining the initiative, Standard Chartered has branches in 26 countries and has been operating in most of those markets for more than 100 years.
We have a proven track record, rich experience and strong expertise to help our clients invest in the Belt and Road projects.
