Standard Chartered PLC (SC PLC) has shown resilience over the past year amid COVID-19 and very low interest rates. The bank has managed its asset quality and credit costs reasonably well, in our view. We believe an improvement in SC PLC's risk management offsets a slight deterioration in its S&P Global Ratings risk adjusted capital (RAC) ratio and the possibility of increased shareholder distributions. We affirmed our 'BBB+/A-2' issuer credit ratings on SC PLC, the holding company, and the 'A/A-1' rating on the group's core subsidiaries Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and Germany-based Standard Chartered Bank AG (SCB AG). The stable outlook on SC PLC mainly reflects our view that the bank will maintain its adequate risk management over the next
