Standard Chartered pretax profit falls

Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya, a unit of Standard Chartered Plc, said on Wednesday its nine-month pretax profit fell 20 percent as it set aside more money for bad loans and operating costs jumped.

The bank said group pretax profit fell to 8.96 billion shillings ($87.8 million) for the nine-months ended Sept. 30 from 11.22 billion shillings a year earlier.

Loan-loss provisions rose nearly 50 percent to 1.69 billion shillings, while operating expenses increased about 15 percent to 9.84 billion shillings.

The bank said its exposure to net non-performing loans stood at 545.8 million shillings at the end of September, lower than the 898.9 million shillings a year earlier.

Group net interest income also rose slightly to 13.47 billion shillings from 13.31 billion shillings.

($1 = 102.10 Kenyan shillings)