The name Standard Chartered comes from the two original banks from which it was founded and which merged in 1869 — The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, and The Standard Bank of British South Africa.[2]
The Chartered Bank was founded by Scotsman James Wilson following the grant of a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1853,[2] while The Standard Bank was founded in the Cape Province of South Africa in 1862 by another Scotsman John Paterson.[2] Both companies were keen to capitalise on the huge expansion of trade and to earn the handsome profits to be made from financing the movement of goods from Europe to the East and to Africa.
In those early years, both banks prospered. Chartered opened its first branches in Bombay, Calcutta and Shanghai in 1858, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore in 1859.[2] With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the extension of the telegraph to China in 1871, Chartered was well placed to expand and develop its business.[2]
In South Africa, Standard, having established a considerable number of branches, was prominent in financing the development of the diamond fields of Kimberley from 1867 and later extended its network further north to the new town of Johannesburg when gold was discovered there in 1885.[2] Half the output of the second largest gold field in the world passed through The Standard Bank on its way to London.
A Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.
Both banks – at that time still quite separate companies – survived the First World War and the Depression, but were directly affected by the wider conflict of the Second World War in terms of loss of business and closure of branches. There were also longer term effects for both banks as countries in Asia and Africa gained their independence in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Each had acquired other small banks along the way and spread their networks further. In 1969, the banks decided to merge,[2] and to counterbalance their existing network by expanding in Europe and the United States, while continuing their expansion in their traditional markets in Asia and Africa.
In 1986 Lloyds Bank of the United Kingdom made a hostile takeover bid for the Group.[3]. The bid was defeated however it spurred Standard Chartered into a period of change, including a series of divestments notably in the United States and South Africa.