Christos Papadopoulos has been six months on the job as regional chief executive officer for the Middle East and North Africa at Standard Chartered. He recently sat down with Executive to discuss what we can expect from both Lebanese and regional banks in the new year. E What will be the drivers of regional asset growth in 2011? The picture in the region is going to be somewhat diverse. There are some markets where on the wholesale banking side, especially in those markets where there are significant infrastructure investment plans, the wholesale banking assets will significantly grow. And then there are other markets where, just by virtue of large populations and ongoing healthy [gross domestic product] growth, we are going to have consumer assets growing —markets like Egypt — but it is not going to be uniform. E Why is wholesale banking part of your Lebanon strategy for 2011? Standard
