Asia focused, but London headquartered, HSBC, saw revenue fall in each of their four main businesses. The decrease was led by substantial drops in private banking and the investment bank.
Europe’s biggest banking group, HSBC reported a pretax profit of $6.1 billion for the first three months of this year, down from $7.1 billion a year ago. However, the figures were largely better than the average forecast of $4.3 billion from analysts.
Reflecting on what the bank claimed were adverse market sentiments in unfavourable market conditions, the Global private banking revenue fell by $100 million or 15 percent, in the first quarter. The bank said the drop was due to lower trading and brokerage business in Europe and Asia.
Cutting Costs
Belt-tightening measures sanctioned last year by bank Chairman Douglas Flint and Group Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver are said to be starting to show on the bottom line. The bank has reduced its headcount by 6,000, and is confident of meeting expense goals by the final quarter of 2017.
«Our Asia businesses continue to gain momentum. We made important market share gains in debt capital markets, China M&A and syndicated lending in the first quarter, and had strong business wins on the back of our investment in Asia. We also extended our leadership in services related to renminbi internationalisation,» said Gulliver.
Gulliver also called the financial performance «resilient’» amid «tough market conditions that affected the entire banking sector.»
