Be in the right place at the right time. It’s a hard strategy to beat and it is working well for Standard Chartered. While other UK banks bemoan their exposure to Europe and North America, StanChart is making hay in Asia.

Thus its chief executive, Peter Sands, could cheerfully admit to rising costs, as revenues rose by 3 percentage points more, and announce plans for more than 1,000 extra staff this year. Even though StanChart’s share price fell, on a day when fear stalked the European banking sector, its outperformance continued apace. Since the March 2009 stock market nadir, it has beaten the FTSE Eurofirst 300 European banks index by a cool

50 percentage points – even though StanChart, relatively unaffected by the crisis, might have been expected to enjoy less of a rebound.