THE ''financial scam'' on the Bombay Stock Exchange predictably

devastated the Standard Chartered figures for last year with the

wideflung bank making a #272m provision against its liabilities.

But the City reckoned that that was more than adequate after hearing

the breakdown from chief executive Malcolm Williamson, took one look at

the rest of the business and marked the shares up 25p to 716p.

The pre-tax total was little changed, dropping #3m to #202m. But if

the impact of an inflow of #111m from the sale of properties offset by a

total cost for India of #305m including the cost of capital having to be

injected in addition to the provisions, then there would have been a

near doubling in the outturn.

First the good news. The operating profits jumped 35% to #470m thanks

to a doubling in the contribution from Asia Pacific and in particular

Hong Kong. That benefited from the combination of a rising volume of

business as well as higher prices -- retiring chairman Rodney Galpin is

quite relaxed that half the bank's assets are in the area he sees as the

growth point for the world economy. Divisional profits were helped by a

#63m inflow from the settlement of the MiniScribe and GPI legal cases.

Good progress was also seen in Africa and the Middle East and South

Asia, apart from India. There, the criminal cases of connivance between

dealers and brokers and attempts at recovery will take some long time to

reach a conclusion -- there has have also been three dismissals in the

London head office.

In the UK, there was an #18m increase in the trading loss to #64m with

the bad-debt provision of #122m only marginally lower. Apart from a

same-again #34m charge at the Chartered Trust consumer finance

subsidiary there were several top-up provisions on earlier major

defaults such as Heron, Isosceles and Brent Walker. But as heavy UK

lending has now ceased, the charge in the current year should be

considerably lower.

One concern is the capital adequacy with the tier one ratio at just

4.9% which is below the 5% that the Bank of England feels comfortable

with. But this could be redressed by both debt recoveries and the

possible issue of dollar preference shares.

Although the dividend total of 20p for a 3.7% yield has effectively

been paid for from the Far East property sales, the City is looking for

the payout to be coverted by earnings this year.