Standard Chartered's push for fee income powered a forecast-beating first-half profit, with the bank lifting its full-year income target after wealth and global banking revenue surged and credit charges tied to the Iran war held steady.

StanChart's Hong Kong-traded shares rose more than 5 percent after the earnings release to hit an almost 19-year high on a fresh US$1 billion share buyback and 20.4 US cents-per-share interim dividend.

The London-headquartered lender, which earns most of its revenue in Asia and Africa, said pretax profit for the first six months reached US$4.78 billion, up 9 percent from a year ago and ahead of a US$4.52 billion analyst forecast.

It raised its guidance for the year, saying it would see income growth around the middle of a 5-7 percent range instead of previous guidance for it to be closer to the bottom.

"Clients continue to turn to us to facilitate trade, investment and wealth flows across the world's most dynamic markets," Group Chief Executive Bill Winters said in a statement.

The strong set of results showed StanChart making continued progress on Winters's strategy to grow fee income, earning more from wealth products and cross-border banking despite concerns that geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty would dampen investments and dealmaking. (Reuters)


Edited by Edmond Fong