The Standard Chartered Group was formed in 1969 through a merger of two banks: The Standard Bank of British South Africa founded in 1863, and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, founded in 1853.

Standard Chartered is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is consistently ranked in the top 25 among FTSE-100 companies by market capitalisation.

Standard Chartered has a history of over 150 years in banking and operates in many of the world's fastest-growing markets with an extensive global network of over 1,400 branches in over 50 countries in the Asia Pacific Region, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom and America.

Standard Chartered derives over 90 per cent of profits from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, serving both consumer and wholesale banking customers worldwide.

From the early 90s, Standard Chartered focused on consumer, corporate, and institutional banking and on the provision of treasury services. In the new millennium Standard Chartered acquired Grindlays Bank from the ANZ Group and the Chase Consumer Banking operations in Hong Kong in 2000.