Standard Chartered First Bank will drop the “First” from its name, becoming Standard Chartered Bank within this year, the bank said Monday.

“It’s not going to happen within this month, but we plan to change the bank’s name before the end of the year,” the bank’s Seoul official said Monday.

The change has been mulled since the bank was created by the acquisition of the former Korea First bank by Standard Chartered back in 2005. Korea is the only country among the group’s more than 70 countries of operation where a local name, First, or Jeil in Korean, is embedded in the official name.

The bank said the change will come as it “aims to utilize Standard Chartered’s corporate image” and generate “synergy by coinciding with the bank’s name with the Group’s global brand.”

Bank officials may have found it more beneficial to omit “Jeil” from its name after a similarly named but unaffiliated local lender, Jeil Savings Bank, was suspended for six months on Sept. 18.

SC First Bank CEO Richard Hill in an April press conference said while the bank regards “Jeil” as an important brand that carries tradition of the bank’s history since 1929, the bank belongs to Standard Chartered Group.

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)