StanChart CEO on what powers India's growth

StanChart CEO on what powers India’s growth

India has taken centre stage at discussions on Standard Chartered Bank’s growth committee meetings because of its growing size and scale, the bank’s chief executive officer Bill Winters said.

Winters, who is a regular visitor to India, was speaking at summit in New Delhi on Friday.

“If you go into our growth committee meeting then everyone’s positive, and India is one of the reasons for that conversation. An economy that can generate 6-8% growth, with a long runway with 1.4 billion people, is not a small economy, it’s a big economy,” said Winters.

He said there were certain engines that were driving the growth, which were also national priorities such as creation of infrastructure and renewable power, where investments are massive.

107566121

“You need financing for ports and highways. Our job is to bring international capital and financing,” he said.

Winters said one of the biggest markers of the growing confidence in India was the investment appetite of local industrialists, who continue putting money here.

“You can see the flow of capital from large businesses in India, who were focused on investing out and are now back focusing on investing in. And these are insiders. They are investing here,” he said while answering a question on what he felt about the growth prospects of the country.

Winters is an American-born investment banker, who cut his teeth at the investment banking behemoth JP Morgan before taking over the reins of Standard Chartered from Peter Sands in 2015.

Winters struck a relatively optimistic note about the state of globally important economies such as the US and China.

“US is showing great resilience. Equity markets have been the best you’ve ever seen. Credit markets are doing well. Corporate profits are good. There are no signs of a recession right now,” he said.

As for China, he said the country had gone through a major real estate crisis, which had also bruised Standard Chartered Bank, but that had not dampened his optimism about that country.

“China is still growing at 5%. Not 10% like earlier. That will not get them out of the middle-income trap. But there are growth pockets in that economy,” he said.

While answering questions about how Standard Chartered was competing with the growing heft and appetite of Indian banks, he said the relationship was quite symbiotic.

“Indian banks are some of our biggest clients. Our relationship is quite symbiotic with Indian banks. We help them with their overseas balance sheets and requirements of dollars. They are well capitalised,” he said.

He also said the local wealth management industry had big potential but the real game changer would be when Indians could invest in global assets from India and not through offshore locations like Dubai. He said the country was moving towards that through regulatory changes.

For more news like this visit The Economic Times.