When Bank of England Governor Mervyn King made his criticism of casino banking in a speech earlier this year he clearly didn’t have Standard Chartered in mind.
King was referring to the risky proprietary-driven activities of investment banks, which he wanted separated from safer, deposit-gathering-and-lending retail banking to lessen the threat of financial institutions that get too big to fail.
But as with other proposals put forward by officials and regulators to redraw the post-crisis banking landscape, King’s argument was too general, misguided and simplistic. Standard Chartered shows why.
The emerging markets specialist has had a better crisis than most other...
