Standard Chartered is thinking about selling most of its wealth and retail banks in Africa

Standard Chartered (STAN.L), opens in a new tab, is looking into the possibility of selling its wealth and retail banking businesses in Botswana, Uganda, and Zambia, the bank said on Wednesday. The move comes as the huge bank tries to free up cash during a major restructuring.

The Asian lender, like its competitor HSBC (HSBA.L), is changing its business to focus on wealthy individuals and foreign businesses that will bring in more money through fees.

It has been moving away from its once-global empire to focus on its core businesses for a while now. It does this because it expects strong economic growth in Asian countries and wants to cut costs.

Standard Chartered said that the possible exits in Africa would be the first of a few business sales that would happen as part of its new plan to double investment in its wealth unit while cutting back on retail banking.

“The group will concentrate its resources in these markets on serving the cross-border needs of global corporate and financial institution clients,” said the bank.

The bank, like HSBC, has recently benefited from higher borrowing costs and Asia’s relatively stable wealth creation and economic growth.

“If they do make this new move, it won’t be a surprise because they hinted at it in their most recent results presentation,” said Gary Greenwood, a stock research analyst at Shore Capital.

StanChart said in October, when it reported its earnings for the third quarter, that it was looking at ways to sell some or all of a few businesses where the “strategic rationale is not sufficiently compelling.”

The lender will save about $1.5 billion over three years thanks to the steps taken to cut costs, even though costs are going up because businesses are growing and inflation is staying high.

StanChart said that the group doesn’t care about how the planned exits will affect their finances.