Standard Chartered Bank India PBT falls 39 percent in H1

MUMBAI: Standard Chartered Bank India on Wednesday reported a steep 39 percent fall in its pre-tax profit to $378 million for the first half to June - registering the first fall since the country's largest foreign lender started reporting its numbers.

This massive fall comes due to a voluntary provision of $53 million and a fresh loan impairment of $72 million the British lender made during the period, offsetting a robust 22 percent growth in advances. India is the biggest market for the London-headquartered bank.

Besides, StanChart, which is the country's second oldest foreign lender, also reported a 12 percent drop in its income in H1 of 2011.

During the reporting period, the bank's consumer banking division saw its income dipping five percent to $238 million against $251 million y-o-y, despite a massive 51 percent improvement in its loan impairment charges to just $20 million against $41 million y-o-y. But operating profit was down only 17 percent to $44 million ($53 million).

Similarly, income from whole sale banking, which is the mainstay of the bank with nearly 57 percent of cash flow coming in from this vertical, slipped 14 percent to $655 million ($760 million) and operating profit falling a massive 42 percent to $334 million ($571 million) on the back of massive rise in loan impairment charges to $52 million against $2 million y-o-y.

Against this, its rival from the home-country HSBC had reported a robust 33 percent rise in pre-tax profit to $451 million from its India operations.

During the same period last year, StanChart had reported a PBT of $624 million, which had made India the largest profit centre for the bank in Asia and also its largest market.