John Peace, Standard Chartered's new chairman, has no great banking pedigree but must have aced the psychometric test. His low-key style suits the world's most unassuming lender. Chief executive Peter Sands is barely a household name in his own household.
Mr Peace should keep it that way. He is stepping up from acting chairman at a time when then there is a danger that animal spirits are settling in at StanChart. A trading update last week showed that profits in the first five months had never been higher, driven up by wider spreads in the wholesale bank. Headcount in that division has grown 9 per cent this year alone. Dealmakers' desks are accumulating perspex tombstones; own account trading is growing. Pre-tax wholesale earnings in the first half may be four times what they were four years ago.
Easy, tigers. The bank has had a good crisis so far. It raised common equity early, last November, back when this kind of thing was bold, rather than expected. The consumer bank, dominated by wealth management, has kept a good grip on costs: excluding one-off charges they should be about 10 per cent lower this year than last. But revenues are weakening. Impairments are rising, as they are in wholesale.