On Thursday, Standard Chartered PLC's Hong Kong unit told that this year, its net interest margin may decrease even more as interest rates are unlikely to rise significantly in the near future.

The chief executive of Standard Chartered's Hong Kong unit, Benjamin Hung expressed at a news conference that the fall will likely be smaller than last year's decline, in the year 2008 when the unit's net interest margin decreased to 1.8% from 2.1%.

Previous year, the Standard Chartered's net interest income from Hong Kong--the group's biggest contributor--totaled US$1.31 billion. Its on the whole net interest income totaled US$7.62 billion.