HSBC confident of retaining independence

by Gill Montia

Story link: HSBC confident of retaining independence

HSBC is unlikely be taking advantage of the Government’s latest bank bail-out scheme, announced yesterday.

The group says it cannot envisage circumstances where it would need help from the Treasury and hopefully its executives are not lacking in imagination.

At the time of the October bank bail-out, HSBC’s chief executive, Michael Geoghegan, told Reuters that he viewed the rescue as a bad precedent, while admitting that the worsening of the credit crisis left the Government with few options.

HSBC is seen as relatively unscathed by the credit crisis because of its focus on emerging markets business.

However, it has written down $4.3 billion in relation to its US personal financial services business and $600 million at its investment banking unit, the latter with the benefit of new EU accounting rules that reduced the sum from around $1.4 billion.

The bank was named most consistently competitive UK mortgage provider of 2008 by independent mortgage adviser, mform.co.uk, and is committed to increasing its home loans business to £15 billion in 2009.

It has also made an addition £1 billion available to small UK businesses but for existing customers only.