Standard Chartered: More work to do

A year ago there was a sense that Standard Chartered had turned the corner after a series of difficult years. Numbers were moving in the right direction, the right staff had been hired and the culture had shifted. But, 12 months on, you couldn’t say the progress has been consistently upward.

It has been in some respects. Third-quarter net profit, announced in October, was dramatically up over the year, to $752 million from $557 million a year earlier.