(9 May 2016 – Philippines) Standard Chartered (StanChart) has agreed to sell its retail business in the Philippines to a local lender.
In its latest move to focus on large cities in emerging markets while exiting from smaller ones, the bank has said it will sell its credit card, personal loan, wealth management and retail deposit business to EastWest Banking Corporation.
Chief executive Bill Winters has reversed a strategy of expanding aggressively across emerging markets. Winters aims to cut 15,000 jobs and reduce around 30 percent of the bank’s US$10 billion (A$13.6 billion) cost base.
The UK based bank will retain its corporate and institutional banking business in the Philippines.
Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar, StanChart’s Philippines chief executive, said: “Standard Chartered remains fully committed to the growth of our corporate and institutional banking business in the Philippines which is a core part of our Asean network.”
Antonio Moncupa, chief executive of EastWest, said: “We expect this agreement to be value accretive as we further enhance our retail and consumer banking scale.”
The agreement is expected to be completed by the end of the year.