Standard Chartered appoints two new directors for Pakistan operations

LAHORE (Staff Report) - Standard Chartered Bank has appointed Ian Bryden and Ferdinand Pieterse as new board of directors in the place of Vinor Ramabhadran and Christos Papadopoulos for running its operations and business in Pakistan.

"Both the directors’ appointment is subject to the regulatory approval from State Bank of Pakistan whereas the outgoing directors already resigned from their last position at the bank", according to the bank's official report.

Earlier, Ian Bryden was the Country Chief Risk Officer of Standard Chartered Bank in India. He is responsible for risk governance across all of Standard Chartered’s businesses in the country.

Ferdinand Pieterse is a Chartered Accountant by profession. He served as the Chief Operating Officer of Kelly Group Limited until February 28, 2013. Pieterse served as the Financial Director of Kelly Group Limited since July 13, 2009.

Standard Chartered Pakistan profit decreased by 4.4 percent to stand at Rs 9.288 billion in 2015 showing bank’s struggling situation in the industry at times when major and mid-tier banks continued to show profit in the same year.

In 2014, the bank also reported a decline in profits that decreased to Rs 9.72 billion as against of Rs 10.52 billion recorded in 2013 depicting the bank’s survival of making growth in the profit for past couple of years.

This year, the British based bank’s profit before tax inched up by 1 percent to Rs 15.4 billion in 2015 whereas its revenue income merely increased by 4 percent to Rs 29.4 billion in 2015, with earning per share declined to Rs 2.40 from Rs 2.51.

The bank’s branches network continued to squeeze which reportedly now standing less than 100 in barely 11 cities, on the other hand, the bank failed to set up its digital branches in Lahore and Islamabad which it had been planning to promote their business through digital banking.

Despite of cutting-throat competition in the banking industry and various challenges to banks due to increase of taxes, the foreign bank seems to have rolled back its operations which is evident that it recently sealed a deal with Orix Leasing Company.

The bank sold out its 84% percent shares in the subsidiary of Standard Chartered Leasing Company to for its merger with Orix Leasing Company, which caused its divestment of Rs 666 million.