The bank’s strategies were building an emerging markets-led and financing-focused global banking and markets business, a wealth management and consumer banking-focused personal financial services operation and a commercial banking business that capitalises on Asia’s growing trade and investment flows.
In 2007, HSBC increased assets by 17% to $326.9bn with the Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio dropping to 8.8% with total capital adequacy at 11.6%. For personal financial services the excellent performance was driven by increased fee income, particularly from retail brokerage, and investment products, as well as net interest income following higher deposit balances and lending.
The fundamentals of HSBC are very strong. The deleveraging of the financial system clearly plays to HSBC’s strengths, given the bank’s conservative balance sheet and international presence. There can be few banks in the world that are better positioned to withstand market turbulence and grasp strategic opportunities.
