The financial reports of Standard Chartered Bank disappointed investors and shareholders. The latest figures unveiled a decline in operating profits. The Board of Directors said operating profits were down by a "high single-digit percentage". Experts named weakness in emerging-market currencies the main reason for such results. The analysts at London-based Standard Chartered had forecast the possibility of such scenario and prepared the bank for a profit reduction. However, there is a fair difference between getting ready and a real experience of losing profit. The bank management planned to avoid a negative forecast, but these plans failed under the current circumstances. In the first quarter, revenue growth dropped by a “low single-digit percentage” from a year earlier, said the bank in a message to its shareholders. After suspending a target to increase income by 10% in 2013, the financial group said it will review its businesses to cut back or withdraw from less-profitable markets. "Everybody is expecting profits to go down in the first half, but margins have started to stabilize. That can be the key driver of growth momentum in the coming quarters," said Steven Chan, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Maybank Kim Eng Holdings Ltd. Standard Chartered took a decision to write down its South Korean business by $1 billion. Revenue and profit in the first half of this year will be "challenged," representatives of the lender said. Costs at the bank were unchanged from a year earlier as expenses at its consumer-banking unit fell, margins stabilized.
