Standard Chartered is exploring a sale of its wealth management and retail operations in three African countries as the banking giant seeks to free up firepower for its investment plans.
The FTSE 100 lender, which focuses on emerging markets, said on Wednesday that it was considering the exits in Botswana, Uganda and Zambia as part of a wider restructuring.
It said the possible sales would be the first in a small number of exits and would support a new strategy to boost spending on its wealth management business.
In October, the London-based bank laid out plans to double investment in its fast-growing wealth arm to roughly $1.5bn (£1.2bn) over five years, spending the money on relationship managers and investment advisers.
Standard Chartered intends to fund this by scaling back its mass retail business over the next 18 months and focusing on core markets, like rival HSBC.
“The group will concentrate its resources in these markets on serving the cross-border needs of global corporate and financial institution clients,” Standard Chartered said on Wednesday.
Big banks like HSBC and Standard Chartered have sought to grow in wealth management to generate sustainable fee income and shield their profits from falling interest rates.
Income from Standard Chartered’s wealth solutions arm grew 32 per cent year-on-year to $694m last quarter, making it the fastest-growing unit among the bank’s main businesses.
On Wednesday, chief executive Bill Winters said that Africa, where Standard Chartered has operated for 170 years, “remains core to our global network”.
“We have more than doubled wealth assets under management in sub-Saharan Africa since 2021 – driven by our hubs in Kenya and Nigeria – and we are confident that the greater concentration resulting from the proposed sales will help us to continue to outperform the market,” he added.
Standard Chartered said the potential sales in Africa would not be “material” to the group as a whole.