Bank increases CEO’s bonus and plans bigger shareholder payout as it faces pressure from investor Ping An
HSBC has increased bonus payouts for its chief executive after fourth-quarter profits more than doubled on the back of a jump in mortgage and loan costs for its borrowers.
The London-headquartered lender said it had increased Noel Quinn’s bonus by 36% to nearly $2.2m (£1.8m), taking his overall pay to $5.5m for 2022. That compares with his $4.9m payout in 2021.
Continue reading...Bank slashes predicted 2023 European wholesale price by 30% as mild weather reduces demand
HSBC has slashed its forecasts for future wholesale gas prices in response to mild weather in Europe – raising hopes of a sharp decline in household energy bills.
The bank cut its 2023 forecasts for the price of gas traded in Europe by about 30% and its forecast for 2024 by 20%.
Continue reading...Chinese insurer Ping An discusses listing bank’s Asian operations separately in Hong Kong
HSBC is facing pressure to break up after one of its largest shareholders told the UK-headquartered bank to consider spinning off its profitable Asian operations centred on Hong Kong.
Chinese insurer Ping An has discussed listing the Asian operations separately in Hong Kong, Bloomberg first reported. Ping An owns 8.3% of the bank, according to the latest public filings, a stake worth £8.2bn.
Continue reading...Cross-party group expresses unease about the fund’s stake in HSBC, which has held shares in Moscow’s oil and gas giants
Trustees of the pension fund for members of parliament have agreed to sell all investments linked to Russia after a cross-party group of more than 60 MPs raised concerns about connections to Russian oil and gas companies.
The trustees met last Thursday, having received the MPs’ letter, and agreed to act immediately to ensure the fund was cleansed of both direct and indirect Russian interests.
Continue reading...Worsening Sino-US ties, strict Covid rules and the crackdown on dissent have dented the territory’s fabled allure as a business hub, say expats
In July 2018, Tara Joseph, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, wrote an article in the best-known local English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, stressing to Americans the territory’s unique position as an Asian business hub.
“The US is forgetting the differences between Hong Kong and China. Let’s remind them,” she wrote. “Hong Kong continues to have a robust and hearty infrastructure of values, practices and institutions that could not contrast more starkly with those of the mainland system.”
Continue reading...After Tesco’s website and app were down for most of the weekend, leaving many frustrated customers unable to shop online, HSBC’s business banking portal (called HSBCnet) had some issues this morning.
Large corporate customers only had intermittent access via the website or app for about an hour, from 9.10am, but the problem has been fixed, according to HSBC.
This is truly a dark day for drivers, and one which we hoped we wouldn’t see again after the high prices of April 2012. This will hurt many household budgets and no doubt have knock-on implications for the wider economy.
Continue reading...Barclays and HSBC among banks booking money equivalent to 14% of annual profits in offshore entities
Leading European banks are booking around €20bn (£17bn) a year – equivalent to 14% of their total profits – in tax havens, with Barclays, HSBC and NatWest Group among those enjoying the lowest tax rates, according to a new report.
The figures emerge from an analysis, conducted by the EU Tax Observatory, of 36 big banks required to publicly report country-by-country data on their activities.
Continue reading...EU forecast to reap extra €50bn per year with UK expected to gain €200m from BP alone
A proposal to be tabled by the US president, Joe Biden, at the upcoming G7 meeting for a 15% global corporate tax rate could reap the EU €50bn (£43bn) a year, and earn the UK nearly €200m extra alone from the British multinational BP, according to research.
Should the tax rate be set higher at 25%, the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies, the EU would earn nearly €170bn extra a year – more than 50% of current corporate tax revenue and 12% of total health spending in the bloc.
Continue reading...World’s poorest nations saddled with ‘imprisoning’ debt, hampering responses to the pandemic, say activists protesting HSBC meeting
Activists at a demonstration outside the annual general meeting of HSBC in London have demanded the bank and other financial giants provide debt relief to African countries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
In an attempt to highlight the role of private creditors in the debt crises of the world’s poorest countries, campaigners with “drop the debt” banners gathered outside HSBC’s AGM at the Southbank Centre.
Continue reading...Meng Wanzhou’s team had sought more time to review new documents after Hong Kong settlement with HSBC
A Canada judge has agreed to delay Meng Wanzhou’s US extradition hearings for three months, according to a ruling read in court on Wednesday, handing the Huawei chief financial officer’s defense team a win.
Meng, 49, was arrested at Vancouver international airport on charges of bank fraud in the US for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, causing the bank to break US sanctions.
Continue reading...Why there may be more to the announcement of Covid-inspired cuts than meets the eye
Here comes another bank that has decided, apparently definitively, that working practices will not return to their pre-pandemic norms. Lloyds Banking Group says it plans to shed 20% of its office space. Earlier this week, HSBC said it would get rid of 40%.
These figures are so dramatic that they invite suspicion. Have managements really come to the firm view that working from home is so popular that employees’ demands for flexibility must be granted? Or did these banks have too much office space in the first place and now wish to save a few quid?
Continue reading...More executive roles are expected to relocate to home base of Hong Kong as part of Asia shift, where most of its earnings come from
HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, has recorded a 34% drop in profit for 2020 as it prepares to double down on its operations in Hong Kong and China despite concern about the political crackdown in the former UK colony.
The bank said on Tuesday that pre-tax profit was down from $13.3bn (£9.4bn) in 2019 to $8.8bn in the 12 months to 31 December, while the adjusted profit before tax of $12.1bn (£8.6bn) fell 76% on the year before.
Continue reading...The bank, which is due to reveal its annual results this week, faces more challenges than the impact of Covid-19 on profits
HSBC’s chief executive Noel Quinn has had an unenviable first year on the job. In 2020 alone, Quinn rolled out a major restructuring plan that will involve at least 35,000 job cuts, battled the financial impact of Covid in both Asia and Europe, and steered the bank through a geopolitical storm over its response to democracy clashes in Hong Kong.
Now he is set to preside over the bank’s second straight year of declining annual profits.
Continue reading...Chinese company turns to UK high court in attempt to stop extradition of Meng Wanzhou from Canada to the US
Huawei’s battle to prevent the extradition of its chief financial officer from Canada to the US will open a new front at the British high court on Friday when the Chinese telecoms giant seeks an application to access records from inside HSBC in a bid to prove that she did not mislead the bank.
The future of Meng Wanzhou has become a major three-way point of diplomatic and legal tension between China, Canada and the US since she was arrested at Vancouver airport in December 2018.
Continue reading...Bank’s chief executive, Noel Quinn, claims business not in position to question police requests
HSBC’s chief executive has denied taking a political stance on China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, claiming the bank was not in a position to question police requests when it agreed to freeze accounts of pro-democracy activists.
Questioned by MPs on the foreign affairs committee on Tuesday, Noel Quinn ruled out exiting the Hong Kong market in light of Beijing’s controversial new security laws, saying it “would only harm” local customers.
Continue reading...Campaigners say the deals revealed in new report are a breach of firms’ human rights responsibilities
Human rights groups are demanding that two of Britain’s biggest banks explain why they have lent tens of millions of pounds to a technology company building a telecoms network that is part-owned and used by the Myanmar military.
HSBC and Standard Chartered have loaned $60m (£44.5m) to Vietnamese telecom giant Viettel in the last four years, a period when the Myanmar military has been accused of committing war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Viettel is a major investor in Mytel, a Myanmar mobile network that, since its launch in June 2018, has grown to become the second-biggest operator in the country with over 10 million users.
Continue reading...Church describes act as ‘political retaliation’ by authorities over support of pro-democracy protestors and comes as eight more arrested
The pastor of a Hong Kong church says HSBC has frozen bank accounts belonging to him, his wife and the church’s charity in what he said was “political retaliation” by authorities for their assistance to young protesters.
It comes as police arrest more opposition figures, and a day after the accounts of former legislator Ted Hui and his family were refrozen under police orders, after they left Hong Kong to live in exile in the UK.
Continue reading...Bank’s future remains uncertain as it finds itself under pressure from Beijing and Washington
HSBC has been a fixture of the Hong Kong economy for more than a century. However, its origins as a financial bridge between Asia and the west have placed it in the centre of a modern day geopolitical storm. Facing pressure to choose sides as Hong Kong is convulsed by the new security law imposed by Beijing and Donald Trump pursues a trade war with China, HSBC is in danger of finding itself without friends in either direction.
Headquartered in London, but dependent on Hong Kong and China for profits, HSBC has been affected by tensions between Washington and Beijing – and shareholder concern over its controversial acceptance of an authoritarian crackdown in its key market.
Continue reading...Move halts slump in share price after money-laundering claims and US-China spat
HSBC has received a much-needed vote of confidence from its largest investor after China’s Ping An Asset Management increased its stake in the embattled bank.
The move comes after the lender was caught in the middle of rising diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing and as it attracts fresh criticism for its money-laundering compliance procedures.
Continue reading...Ambassador to London calls extradition treaty suspension ‘blatant’ interference in Chinese affairs and a contravention of international law
China’s ambassador has accused the UK government of blatantly interfering in China’s internal affairs by suspending extradition with Hong Kong, and led a cavalcade of Beijing voices warning of consequences.
On Monday the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, announced his government would follow moves by Australia, Canada, and the US, and formally suspend its extradition agreement with Hong Kong in response to Beijing’s unilateral imposition of national security laws.
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