STANDARD Chartered, the Asia-focused UK bank, is to cut 15,000 jobs by 2018 and raise $5.1bn (£3.3bn) to create a “focused and well-capitalised” group.

About $3bn being raised in the rights issue will cover reorganisation costs.

The bank also said it was the subject of two investigations by the UK Financial Conduct Authority relating to monitoring of sanctions and anti-money laundering compliance.

Standard Chartered shares fell nine per cent in late morning trading in London. In Hong Kong shares closed down by 3.5 per cent.

The restructuring was announced as the bank reported a a disappointing third-quarter pre-tax loss of $139m for the three months to September. That compared with a profit of $1.5 billion for the same period last year. Revenue fell 18.4 per cent to $3.68bn and losses on bad loans almost doubled to $1.23bn for the quarter.

The job cuts are part of a restructuring programme to take place over the next three years.

Standard Chartered gave few details about the staff reductions, but the figure could include businesses it plans to sell. It employs 86,000 people.

Chief executive Bill Winters announced a strategic review of Standard Chartered when he took over as chief executive in June. He put a new management team in place the following month and analysts had been expecting the bank to seek additional capital to shore up its balance sheet.

Bill acknowledged the challenging business environment facing the bank.

“This is an aggressive and decisive set of actions to fundamentally shore up the underpinnings of the bank,” he said.

“We’ve tried to achieve a very high level of capitalisation to buffer ourselves against eventualities and we think we are very well capitalised to deal with any of the challenges that could come our way."

The bank was co-operating fully with the two FCA investigations, the chief executive said. Standard Chartered remains under investigation by US authorities relating to transactions involving Iranian clients.

Michael Hewson, the chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said banks were being compelled to have bigger buffers to withstand future fiscal shocks - especially in Asia where banks such as Standard Chartered and HSBC are particularly exposed now.

His concern was that Standard Chartered was “way behind the curve” on cutting costs.

At the bottom of page 8 of the voluminous slide pack presentation offered to investors by Standard Chartered is this telling sentence: “The Bank of England will publish the results of its 2015 stress tests on 1 December, including the results for the group, the outcome of which is unknown to the company and not yet finalised.”

The bank’s work is focused on what could happen in the event of a significant collapse in the Chinese economy and a subsequent global downturn.

Bill has moved before the Bank of England sticks its weighty oar in.

Growing regulatory costs and controls in the wake of the financial crisis have weighed on big lenders in the UK, US and Australia.

Standard Chartered has already shed some businesses in Hong Kong, China and Korea to help improve its capital position.

Its effect will be most acute on the UK’s two banks most focused on the Asian market: HSBC and Standard Chartered.

Mr Winters, the Standard Chartered chief executive, appears keen to get his capital raising punch in first. He has also made it clear he wants Standard Chartered to compete on international renminbi trading, which the bank believes will become a reserve currency up against the US dollar.

Among the plans announced on Tuesday, Standard Chartered said it would invest more than $1bn to reposition its retail banking, private banking and wealth management businesses, as well as upgrade its Africa franchise and yuan services.

The rights issue had the backing of Temasek, Singapore’s state investment firm and Standard Chartered’s largest shareholder. Hugh Young, managing director at Aberdeen Asset Management, the bank’s second-biggest shareholder, said: “[There is] still a lot of hard work to put in but the path is clear.”It, Standard Chartered’s first since 2010, will be launched on Tuesday at a price of 465p a share – a 35% discount to its closing price on Monday with two new shares to be issued for every seven existing shares.

The bank has also axed the final dividend for this year to conserve cash.