When Peter Sands, Standard Chartered chief executive, steps on to the tarmac at Yangon airport in a few weeks’ time, he will mark the bank’s return to Myanmar after a forced absence of a decade.
It will also highlight how southeast Asia is becoming an important part of the bank’s Asian business.
While StanChart is domiciled in Britain, about 90 per cent of its pre-tax profits came from Asia, Africa and the Middle East in 2011, the latest full-year period for which data are available. More than a quarter of group pre-tax income came from southeast Asia. The region encompasses Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy where StanChart has a minority stake in Permata, a bank.