Standard Chartered Bank

History

2024: China's share of the company's revenue - 33%

As of October 2024

2021

Agreement with BC Technology Group to trade cryptocurrencies

In June 2021, it became known that Standard Chartered Plc will enter into a partnership agreement with BC Technology Group Ltd., an investment company from Hong Kong, to buy and sell virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

A few days earlier, its largest competitor HSBC Holdings Plc announced that it would not participate in cryptocurrency trading.

Alex Manson, head of technology (SC Ventures), said it had "strong confidence that digital assets will remain and be accepted by the institutional market as a very relevant asset class."

Closing a third of branches worldwide

At the end of April 2021, the British bank Standard Chartered announced plans to reduce the number of branches by about a third as it adapts to the post-pandemic world focused on digital technologies.

Standard Chartered Bank, which has a strong presence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, will reduce the size of its global branch network to about 400 units. Thus, the bank intends to cut costs.

The news of the bank's drop in branches comes months after the bank set out post-pandemic plans for a hybrid approach.

UK bank Standard Chartered closes a third of branches worldwide

According to Bloomberg, by the end of 2021, the company intends to transfer most of its employees to a hybrid work format. More than 800 existing office space around the world Standard Chartered intends to convert into conference rooms and meeting rooms.

The events of the past year drew attention to the fact that the concept of dedicated offices is incompatible with the emerging need for flexibility, cooperation and space saving. The concept of a special office is quickly becoming a thing of the past, "Andy Halford, the bank's chief financial officer, said in a statement.

The source says that the bank's CEO Bill Winters also refused his own separate office, his office is already available for booking. Standard Chartered has signed an agreement with IWG to lease office space closer to where employees who cannot work remotely from home live.

We are a product of habits, but we have formed new ones, "said Tanuj Kapilashrami, head of human resources department Standard Chartered. - Being forced out of office demonstrated the benefits of face-to-face communication and the value of physical workspaces as hubs for collaboration.[1][2]

2020

Bank ditches Zoom, warns against using Google Hangouts

In April 2020, it became known that Standard Chartered became the first major financial institution on the international market to recommend that all its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic refrain from using the Zoom video conferencing solution in their workplaces. The reason is the low level of security. This was reported by Reuters with reference to an internal letter authored by Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters.

In addition, the top manager mentioned the Google Hangouts app, which he also asked his employees not to use in their work for the same reason.

Standard Chartered became the first major financial institution on the international market to recommend that all its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic refrain from using the Zoom video conferencing solution in their workplaces

According to the experts referred to by the agency, none of the solutions specified in the letter provides a level of security comparable to that provided by corporate communications systems, Cisco Microsoft or. Blue Jeans

The press service of Standard Chartered declined to comment on the information, but said that employees are allowed to use several voice and video communication tools allowed in the organization.

The company takes advantage of Blue Jeans' product, according to two sources at Standard Chartered.

In his warning, Winters joined executives from other companies, including the head of SpaceXIlon Musk, who banned their employees from using Zoom after hackers learned to infiltrate other people's video conferencing and post obscene or offensive content on the air.

Banks fear that vulnerable software could cause customer data to leak. Regulators in such cases can impose large penalties on them, even if the leak occurred without malicious intent.^[3]

Penalty for loans to the Turkish bank Sberbank

In March 2020, the UK authorities issued two fines totaling £20.47 million to London-based Standard Chartered Bank for lending to Turkish DenizBank, which at that time was a subsidiary of Sberbank and fell under European sanctions. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) found that Standard Chartered Bank gave DenizBank 102 loans between April 2015 and January 2018. Sberbank fell under the sanctions of the European Union in 2014. Thus, the restrictions extended to DenizBank.

The regulator refers to EU legislation, which, in particular, prohibits issuing loans with a maturity of more than 30 days to organizations that have fallen under sanctions.

OFSI notes that some of the 102 loans issued did not violate current European legislation (it provides for exceptions to sanctions for loans that are aimed at financing export-import operations with permitted goods), and 70 violated. Among them, the regulator allocates 21 loans totaling £97.4 million, they were sold between April 7, 2018 and January 26, 2018. It was because of this series of loans that OFSI issued fines, deeming them the "most serious" violation.

The regulator notes that Standard Chartered Bank knew about the sanctions and that in this regard it should stop financial transactions with DenizBank.

The credit institution admitted that it had committed violations, so OFSI decided to reduce the amount of fines against it by 30%. The amount of the first fine after that amounted to £7.6 million, and the second - £12.7 million.

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