Longtime Standard Chartered Exec Leaves for India’s Yes Bank

A 23-year veteran of U.K. bank Standard Chartered is reportedly departing for India’s Yes Bank.

Manish Jain, who had been Standard Chartered’s co-head of corporate, commercial and institutional banking for India, is set to become Yes Bank’s head of corporate banking, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (Aug. 1).

A spokesperson for Standard Chartered told Bloomberg Jain was pursuing other opportunities outside the bank, and that Standard Chartered would name a successor in due course.

According to Jain’s profile on LinkedIn, he joined the bank in 2000 and has held his most recent position for three years, handling large local corporates, mid-market companies, commercial real estate, supply chain finance and transaction banking sales.

Though based in Great Britain, Standard Chartered makes the bulk of its money from its operations in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the Bloomberg report noted.

The switch comes as companies are increasingly seeing opportunities in India. For example, Tuesday also brought the news that payments company PayU will sell most of its global business  to focus on the Indian payment and FinTech market, where it serves more than 450,000 merchants and 2 million credit customers.

“Innovation and progressive regulation are driving rapid change within the digital payments industry in India, and we see many new opportunities to further expand our business there,” said Bob van Dijk, CEO of PayU owner Prosus.

“As one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, we strongly believe in digital India and are excited about the next phase of growth for PayU in India.”

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered recently upped its bitcoin price predictions after seeing increased miner profitability, and now projects the crypto asset to reach a price $50,000 by the end of 2023 and reach $120,000 by the end of 2024.

Geoff Kendrick, head of crypto research and EM FX West at Standard Chartered, said that increased miner profitability will drive down net bitcoin supply as miners can sell less while maintaining cash inflows.

“Increased miner profitability per BTC mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and pushing BTC prices higher,” Kendrick said.

While bitcoin reached all-time highs of nearly $69,000 in 2021, Standard Chartered sees more potential for growth, according to the report.

The bank has raised its forecast for bitcoin from its April expectation that prices would reach $100,000 by the end of next year, the report said.