Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters said he hoped the election of President Joe Biden would help de-escalate US-China tensions that have hung over the bank in recent years, ending “tit for tat” escalations in trade and geopolitics.
Like its London-based rival HSBC, StanChart has been navigating an increasingly fraught relationship between the US, UK and China. The situation worsened last year after Beijing imposed a controversial national security law on Hong Kong, which the lender publicly supported to avoid compromising its most important market.
“[It] was pretty tense last year . . . by no means do we think the tension goes away but should be much more manageable” as both sides came up with a framework for engagement, Winters said on Thursday. A continuation of the “tit for tat escalations that we saw last year . . . could end up doing real harm to both parties”.