Standard Chartered launches £1.2bn share buyback and 65% dividend increase despite missing analyst profit expectations, as wealth division delivers record performance.
Standard Chartered pressed ahead with plans to return capital to investors(Image: Standard Chartered plc)
Standard Chartered rewarded shareholders with generous returns following its full-year results, even as the London-listed bank fell short of the profit target forecast by analysts.
The Asia-focused lender posted a two per cent rise in pre-tax profit to $814m, coming in below analyst expectations of $1.1bn.
The shortfall was driven by weaker-than-anticipated net interest income, which tumbled 12 per cent to $1.5bn in the final quarter, despite a one per cent increase on an annual basis.
For the full year, pre-tax profit surpassed $7bn for 2025, climbing from $6bn the previous year.
Annual operating expenses also edged up four per cent to $12.3bn, with the bank attributing the rise to targeted business growth investments, the strategic recruitment of relationship managers and higher performance-related pay, as reported by City AM.
Nevertheless, wealth management remained the bank’s strongest division, with income surging 24 per cent to $3.1bn. Growth was largely driven by a record $52bn in new net inflows as more than 275,000 new affluent clients were brought on board.
Notwithstanding the profit shortfall, Standard Chartered pressed ahead with plans to return capital to investors.
The bank, best known in the UK as Liverpool FC’s shirt sponsor, announced a $1.5bn share buyback and declared a final dividend of 49 cents per share, bringing the total dividend for 2025 to 61 cents – a 65 per cent jump on the prior year.
Earlier this month, the lender endured its steepest single-session share price decline since President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs. Shares in the FTSE 100 lender tumbled six per cent following confirmation that finance chief Diego De Giorgi was departing to take the helm at asset manager Apollo.
Standard Chartered’s annual report, published on Tuesday, disclosed that chief executive Bill Winters had seen his remuneration package rise to £12.7 million for 2025, bolstered by £10.5 million in bonuses and share awards.
De Giorgi had been widely regarded as the principal architect behind Standard Chartered’s ‘Fit for Growth’ programme.
The initiative, launched in 2024, set in motion a three-year overhaul designed to streamline, standardise and digitise the bank’s operations, whilst targeting cost reductions of nearly $1.5bn over the same period.
De Giorgi’s exit has prompted fresh scrutiny over the succession planning around Winters, currently the longest-serving chief executive of any major British bank, with many analysts having previously tipped the departing finance director as the frontrunner to eventually take the top job.