Standard Chartered mulls Bahrain retail exit

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Bahrain could be the latest casualty in Standard Chartered’s multi-year global retreat from retail banking. The bank will explore a sale of its Wealth & Retail Banking (WRB) business in Bahrain, while keeping its Corporate and Investment Banking franchise in the country, according to a statement seen by EnterpriseAM. The move comes after a multi-year scale-back that has already taken Standard Chartered out of Jordan and Lebanon and several African markets (including Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) — a withdrawal the bank said in October 2024 it had substantially completed.

The bank framed the Bahrain exit as sharpening focus on client segments that can help the bank scale — affluent wealth and corporate banking, rather than retail. Any sale would still need regulatory sign-off and would be phased over 18-24 months, Standard Chartered said.

The move stands in contrast with the bank’s GCC push. If the sale is finalized, Bahrain would be the first proper exit in the Gulf, and it comes even as the bank builds out affluent banking next door, hiring relationship managers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi under a USD 1.5 bn investment plan targeting affluent client base. HSBC and JP Morgan are also chasing the same affluent flows in the region.

Qatari LNG exports are proceeding unaffected despite a deadly explosion at Ras Laffan complex earlier this week that killed at least 13 and left 66 injured, Energy Minister Saad Al Kaabi said. The explosion took place at the Barzan gas processing facility, which mainly feeds domestic networks in Qatar. While authorities have labeled the incident a “technical accident,” it stands as one of the deadliest gas industry disasters in more than two decades.

State-owned QatarEnergy is working to restart LNG ​operations after months of halted operations and declarations of force majeure on contracts due to Iranian military attacks. Repairs after March’s strikes were estimated to take up to five years, but Qatar announced it was targeting resuming 80% of LNG production from Ras Laffan in two months once the Strait of Hormuz is open for passage.

The Gulf’s USD 124 bn remittance machine is wobbling. The Iran conflict is stress-testing the money sent home by roughly 30 mn foreign workers across the GCC, with early 2026 data showing real strain for the first time since the pandemic, Bloomberg reports. Around 40% of senders are already drawing from emergency reserves, says Daré Okoudjou, CEO of cross-border payments platform Onafriq, who warns of a serious volume collapse by 3Q 2026 if the war drags on.

The pattern: A panic-spurred spike in outbound remittances from the Middle East to Kenya, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka (among other countries) in the opening weeks of the war was followed by a hangover as the panic eased. Kenyan transfers from the Gulf fell 18% in April, while Philippine remittances grew at their slowest pace in almost four years — a warning sign for a country where inflows are c.10% of GDP.

The savings buffer is the number to watch. Okoudjou says transaction volumes have risen, but the average transfer values have dropped about 12%, with wage delays — and in some cases cuts — pushing workers to draw from reserves.