© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The logo of Standard Chartered bank is seen at its headquarters in London, Britain, July 26, 2022. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
By Hadeel Al Sayegh
DUBAI (Reuters) – Standard Chartered plans to sell its Jordanian business to Arab Jordan Investment Bank (AJIB), the two sides said on Sunday, as the emerging markets-focused lender presses ahead with plans to exit seven markets in Middle and African East. .
The bank entered into an agreement with AJIB, subject to central bank approval, whereby Standard Chartered’s (OTC:) corporate, commercial and institutional banking, consumer lending and private banking businesses will migrate to AJIB.
All employees of Standard Chartered Bank in Jordan will be transferred to AJIB, an emailed statement said.
Sunil Kaushal, Standard Chartered’s CEO for Africa and the Middle East, said the deal is aligned with the bank’s global strategy “to deliver efficiency, reduce complexity and redirect resources within the Africa and Middle East region to areas with the greatest potential to drive scale, grow and better support customers.”
AJIB said the purchase is part of the Jordanian lender’s strategy to increase its market share in the country, which continues to grow after it acquired HSBC’s banking business in Jordan in 2014 and the banking business of the National Bank of Kuwait in Jordan in 2022.
Standard Chartered in April 2022 said it plans to exit seven markets, consisting of Angola, Cameroon, The Gambia, Jordan, Lebanon, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe.
The bank said at the time that it was looking to exit markets where it is below scale and narrow its focus to the fastest growing markets in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
