No one is getting fired during this downturn for being too bearish. But what to make of Standard Chartered’s decision to raise more capital weeks after saying it didn’t need any? Billed as primarily a response to shifting investor expectations of higher capital ratios, it could just as well imply that StanChart is pre-empting global deflation, with all the shrinking assets and rising bad debts that implies.

This is no distressed issue. The UK’s third largest bank already has a buffer over all its local regulators’ minimum solvency requirements. Funded mostly by deposits, it has no serious short-term debt refinancing risk – just £3bn of a total of £18bn outstanding comes due next year. Presenting third-quarter results at the end of October, StanChart emphasised its liquidity and conservative balance sheet, pleasingly diversified by geography, asset type and industry.