London, March 18, 2026, 19:24 GMT
Standard Chartered PLC finished Wednesday at roughly 1,630 pence, climbing 1.7% even as the FTSE 100 slipped 0.9%. Driving the move, investors reacted to a Reuters story that said the bank is considering bids for a chunk of its India credit-card portfolio. According to Reuters, Standard Chartered is weighing proposals from Kotak Mahindra Bank and Federal Bank, covering up to 600,000 India-only credit card customers.
This shift would steer the bank even further from low-margin, single-product retail clients in India, moving it toward the affluent and wealth management segments it’s been chasing. Investors have been poking at that plan since Standard Chartered revealed higher profit forecasts for 2025 last month, along with a fresh $1.5 billion buyback.
Standard Chartered isn’t treating India as a sideshow. The group brought in $1.6 billion in operating income from the country in 2025—that’s 7.8% of its total. Sources told Reuters the bank expects to hold on to about 70,000 of its wealthier Indian cardholders, even if it decides to offload the rest of the credit card book.
Kotak’s card base sits at 4.5 million, while Federal counts 2 million cards in India—both dwarf Standard Chartered’s 670,000, Reuters noted. For the two Indian lenders, the book presents a cut-rate path to bulk up in cards.
The stock’s move higher on Wednesday brought some relief after a tough spell. Still, shares sit roughly 15% under the Feb. 3 high of 1,924 pence. Last week, JPMorgan pointed to Standard Chartered and HSBC as the European lenders with the greatest exposure to the Middle East conflict.
Standard Chartered posted a 16% jump in 2025 pretax profit, reaching $6.96 billion, Reuters reported Feb. 24, with gains coming from global banking and wealth units. “The board has also been clear they would like me to see through this strategy,” Chief Executive Bill Winters said at the time, suggesting he plans to remain at the helm for the bank’s next chapter. Reuters
After the results, Morningstar’s Kathy Chan bumped her fair value estimate for the London-listed shares up to 1,730 pence. She added that the additional buyback “will continue to support share price performance.” Morningstar, Inc.
Capital returns continue quietly. The bank disclosed in a Wednesday filing that it purchased 969,425 ordinary shares on March 17 as part of the buyback rolled out in February. That brings total expenditure for the program to roughly $250.5 million by the prior London close.
Plenty happening on the near-term calendar. Standard Chartered’s London shares go ex-dividend Thursday; anyone buying from that point will miss out on the 49 U.S. cents final payout, which, according to the bank, gets paid May 14.
The Middle East remains a sticking point. According to JPMorgan, the area brings in roughly 8% of Standard Chartered’s revenue and 12% of its pretax profit—those numbers leave out Turkey and Egypt. Morningstar’s Chan flagged a potential uptick in risks tied to “increased economic uncertainty,” particularly for trade-linked lending and credit costs. Reuters
With Thursday’s ex-dividend adjustment in the rearview, the next key date comes up soon. Winters is set to roll out the bank’s new strategy at a capital markets event in May—another hurdle for the stock, which just saw a rebound on Wednesday.
