By Olivia Hart

Standard Chartered’s third-quarter net profit jumped 46% to $1.5 billion as CEO Bill Winters called geopolitical fragmentation “an advantage for us.” The British multinational lender released its results on Oct. 28.

Operating income rose 13% to $5.8 billion, while pre-tax profit climbed 27% to $2.25 billion. The results show how far the bank now leans on fee-generating businesses beyond traditional lending. Standard Chartered also raised its 2026 outlook and expects a return on tangible equity of about 14%.

What does fragmentation change for Standard Chartered?

Geopolitical fragmentation means supply chains, trade and policy realign along political lines. Rising trade tensions have prompted companies to reconsider where they make things. Companies moving production from China to Southeast Asia under “China plus one” strategies seek to offset China’s rising costs, and they need new banking relationships and financing arrangements in each market.

Standard Chartered operates in 54 markets, with a significant presence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. That footprint lets the bank follow clients as their trade and investment moves.

For Standard Chartered, fragmentation works like a new trade route: it creates banking demand wherever supply chains relocate. Yet manufacturers have found the shift more complicated than expected, because many Southeast Asian factories still rely on Chinese inputs, Fortune reported in October.

At a media roundtable, Bill Winters said: “We’ve really focused on getting a few things right and one is to serve multinational corporations and multinational individuals on their cross-border needs.” The South China Morning Post reported his comments.

How did fee businesses drive the quarter?

Wealth Solutions income rose 26% to $1.1 billion. Global Markets income grew 20% to just over $1 billion. Both fee businesses grew faster than the 13% increase in operating income, making them the quarter’s main disclosed sources of expansion.

The results also landed in a buoyant banking industry. Banks earned a record $1.3 trillion in net income in 2025, up 7% from a year earlier, according to McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review.

McKinsey argues that AI will reward lenders that move quickly. Winters cautioned that the AI boom may lead to misallocated capital, and said the bank’s role is to avoid those risks.

What are the risks to the fragmentation strategy?

Fragmentation cuts both ways for a bank built around cross-border transactions. Trade restrictions and political instability add friction, while a broad contraction in trade could reduce demand for those services.

Operating across dozens of jurisdictions also requires the bank to track country regulations and compliance requirements that can shift with politics. Even so, Standard Chartered’s economists argue that fears of a broad retreat from the U.S. dollar are overstated, Fortune reported in July.

The strategy therefore depends on companies continuing to diversify supply chains, even as political barriers make those moves harder. A contraction in trade would test transaction volumes and the bank’s regional operating model.

Which five trends will define finance over the next decade?

Winters identified five structural trends that he expects to redefine finance over the next decade:

• The transition to a low-carbon economy.
• Wealth creation across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
• Changes to banking infrastructure.
• Geopolitical fragmentation.
• The digitization of money.

How is Hong Kong advancing the digital-money strategy?

Hong Kong sits at the centre of Standard Chartered’s digital-money position because regulators there are building frameworks for digital assets. This month, the bank launched tokenized deposits in Hong Kong.

It also piloted a liquidity facility to support Ant International’s investment in tokenized money market funds. Standard Chartered ranks No. 7 on the 2026 Fortune Crypto 100.

Winters said the bank is positioned for the themes it considers most important for the next 10 to 20 years and intends to keep its focus on them.