Standard Chartered beats the pack

Indeed, the core Hong Kong operation saw total profit, after combining consumer and wholesale earnings, rise 7 per cent to $1.66bn. That reflected decent mortgage volumes in the Hong Kong consumer bank and robust demand for Chinese currency-related products in the wholesale operation there. South Korea, meanwhile, saw profit on the same combined basis recover to $514m from last year's $190m. However, combined profits at the other Asia Pacific business did fall 12 per cent to $1.19bn, reflecting factors such as weaker wealth management income in the consumer business and lower levels of foreign exchange trading volatility in the wholesale business. Subdued business sentiment in India meant combined profit there fell 16 per cent to $676m. Still, the African operations delivered a 23 per cent combined profit hike to $771m.

The group's bad debt charge increased 34 per cent to $1.22bn. That reflects localised credit quality pressures, such as in the South Korean consumer book or the Indian wholesale unit. But the charge remains small compared with the $284bn loan book. Moreover, the loan book itself grew 6 per cent in 2012 - at a time when most UK lenders are shrinking their loan books - which will inevitably mean a rise in defaults, too. And while the bank's core tier one capital ratio fell from 11.8 per cent to 11.7 per cent, that still looks robust - RBS's ratio, for example, is 10.3 per cent.

Broker Investec Securities expects EPS of 241.6¢ for 2013 (from 199.7¢ in 2012) and tangible net assets (NTV) of 1,634.6¢.