Standard Chartered
UK bankA London bank that barely banks in Britain. Almost everything it earns comes from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the spring week video interview opens by asking what excites you about the firm, so an answer that would read identically for Barclays fails at the first question. Four questions, reported as the same four every time.
About Standard Chartered
A British bank that does almost no business in Britain. Formed in 1969 from the merger of the Standard Bank of British South Africa and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, it is headquartered in London and listed in both London and Hong Kong, but it earns the overwhelming majority of its income in Asia, Africa and the Middle East and has no UK high street presence. That footprint is the firm: it exists to bank trade and capital moving between those regions, which is a genuinely different business from the UK banks it sits beside in the FTSE.
- Formed
- 1969, from two colonial-era banks
- Headquarters
- London
- Listed
- London and Hong Kong
- Where it earns
- Asia, Africa and the Middle East
- Markets
- Present in over 50
- UK retail
- None, unlike every other UK-listed bank
Core values
The process
- 1Application
Online application to the spring week programme.
- 2Recorded video interviewConfirmed · 2027 cycle
Four questions, reported as the same four for every applicant. The shape is unusual: only one asks for a past example. One is motivation, two are scenarios you are asked to respond to, and only the last is a conventional behavioural question. The second question comes with specific information about the team you are being asked to work with, so the setup matters as much as the question; read or listen to it properly rather than reaching for a prepared teamwork answer.
- 3Later stages
We have not verified what follows the video interview for this cycle, so treat the four questions as the confirmed part of this page.
What Standard Chartered screens for
- A reason for Standard Chartered that would not read identically for Barclays or HSBC
- Using the specific detail you are given in a scenario rather than a generic answer
- Judgment about when to tell a manager and when to go to a colleague first
- Taking criticism without explaining why it was unfair
- Awareness that the bank's business is Asia, Africa and the Middle East
The AI marks your answers against this emphasis — not just a generic rubric.
Interviewed at Standard Chartered recently?
Tell us what you were asked and we’ll add it here for the next candidate.