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Tag: HSBC

  • HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC’s asset management arm appoints a new head of credit research in Asia amid an ongoing expansion across its product range and distribution capabilities in the region.

    HSBC Asset Management appoints Seok Poh Yeoh as head of credit research for Asia, according to a statement, effective immediately.

    In her Hong Kong-based role, Yeoh reports locally to head of Asian fixed income Elizabeth Allen as well as Paris-based global head of credit research Tina Radovic.

    Yeoh has 16 years of industry experience and was most recently a financial and corporate credit research analyst at Credit Suisse. She rejoins HSBC Asset Management after first joining in 2012 as a financial analyst.

    The latest hire follows announced ambitions by HSBC Asset Management to enhance its platform in mainland China, India, and Southeast Asia, most notably for the high net worth product range across alternatives, sustainability, and thematic equities.

    According to the bank, HSBC Asset Management has Asian fixed income assets under management totaling nearly $73 billion as of March 31 this year.

  • HSBC Rolls Out Institutional Family Office Services

    HSBC Rolls Out Institutional Family Office Services

    Single-family office clients across Asia will be able to tap on HSBC’s team of investment banking specialists and institutional execution services.

    HSBC said that combining the family office and wealth planning strengths of its private banking business with the expertise and reach of its global banking and markets business will allow it to better serve the growing needs and levels of sophistication of family offices.

    In an announcement on Thursday, the bank cited the growing number of ultra-high net worth families in Asia and the scale of wealth transfer happening in the region, where $1.9 trillion is expected to be passed on to the next generation.

    The bank’s family office relationships will be able to access a wider range of solutions and opportunities, including financing solutions and product capabilities, including institutional market access, prime services, and private deals, the announcement said.

    As wealthy individuals and businesses professionalize the management of their family wealth, we will deliver the full strength of advisory and structuring capabilities in our private banking and investment banking teams to meet our clients’ increasingly sophisticated investment and family needs, Siew Meng Tan, regional head of HSBC Private Banking, Asia-Pacific, said.

    HSBC said the move is aligned with its ambition to become the leading wealth bank in the region. The bank previously announced plans to invest over $3.5 billion in the next five years to accelerate the growth of its Wealth and Personal Banking (WPB) business in Asia.

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  • HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC AM Names Asia Head of Credit Research

    HSBC’s asset management arm appoints a new head of credit research in Asia amid an ongoing expansion across its product range and distribution capabilities in the region.

    HSBC Asset Management appoints Seok Poh Yeoh as head of credit research for Asia, according to a statement, effective immediately.

    In her Hong Kong-based role, Yeoh reports locally to head of Asian fixed income Elizabeth Allen as well as Paris-based global head of credit research Tina Radovic.

    Yeoh has 16 years of industry experience and was most recently a financial and corporate credit research analyst at Credit Suisse. She rejoins HSBC Asset Management after first joining in 2012 as a financial analyst.

    The latest hire follows announced ambitions by HSBC Asset Management to enhance its platform in mainland China, India, and Southeast Asia, most notably for the high net worth product range across alternatives, sustainability, and thematic equities.

    According to the bank, HSBC Asset Management has Asian fixed income assets under management totaling nearly $73 billion as of March 31 this year.

  • Huawei CFO Wins Extradition Hearing Delay

    Huawei CFO Wins Extradition Hearing Delay

    An agreement between Huawei and HSBC in Hong Kong has led Canadian courts to delay chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou’s extradition hearing.

    Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was handed a three-month delay for her U.S. extradition hearing, according to a court ruling, which was scheduled to conclude in May.

    Defense attorney Richard Peck had requested «a modest frame of time» to read newly obtained documents and potentially file them as evidence.

    Peck and the defense team were referring to a breakthrough agreement made between Meng, Huawei, and HSBC in Hong Kong courts earlier this month for «documents production».

    According to a statement from the bank, it agreed to «resolve the legal proceedings in Hong Kong regarding their request for documents».

    Defense lawyers claimed that the documents would prove that HSBC was not misled into business dealings with Iran, causing it to break U.S. sanctions.

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  • Climate Activists Target HSBC HQ on Earth Day

    Climate Activists Target HSBC HQ on Earth Day

    Activists said the bank has invested some $80 billion in fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement in 2015.

    Activists from the Extinction Rebellion group hit HSBC’s London headquarters in Canary Wharf in an Earth Day protest on Thursday, shattering 19 windows.

    HSBC has pledged to shrink its carbon footprint to net-zero by 2050. However, the bank’s current climate plan still allows it to finance coal power, and provides no basis to turn away or cancel contracts based on links to the fossil fuel industry, the group said.

    Extinction Rebellion, formed in 2018, describes itself as a «non-violent a direct action movement demanding a response to the climate and ecological emergency.»

    The group protested at the London headquarters of Barclays two weeks ago, accusing the bank of «continued investments in activities that are directly contributing to the climate and ecological emergency.

    Its Money Rebellion campaign also saw its members take part in civil disobedience outside multiple banks in New York, including J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, TD Bank and Citibank.

  • HSBC Adds Coinbase to Crypto Ban List

    HSBC Adds Coinbase to Crypto Ban List

    Despite the growing embrace of cryptocurrencies among institutions and retail investors, HSBC is sticking to its policy of avoiding virtual currencies and stocks correlated to them.

    Europe’s largest bank in Europe, with total assets of $2.715 trillion, is likely to avoid Coinbase’s newly listed COIN stock because of lingering worries about crypto’s role in money laundering and criminal activity.

    HSBC has no appetite for direct exposure to virtual currencies and limited appetite to facilitate products or securities that derive their value from virtual currencies. This is not a new policy, Ankit Patel, HSBC corporate media relations manager, told crypto news platform Coindesk.

    Last week, the bank confirmed that it stopped customers of its online trading platform InvestDirect from adding MicroStrategy stock to their portfolios, calling them a «virtual currency product.» The company holds about $5.5 billion in bitcoin, or about 80 percent of its $6.8 billion market capitalization.

    Coinbase debuted on Nasdaq last Wednesday in a direct listing, in what was seen as another key step towards cryptocurrencies becoming a mainstream medium of exchange.

    The listing of Coinbase’s means that even if average investors don’t want to buy or sell cryptocurrencies on their own, they can still can invest in the cryptocurrency economy by taking a stake in one of its biggest players. After a day of trading, the U.S.’ largest cryptocurrency exchange had a market capitalization of $86 billion.

    To stay competitive amid client demand for digital assets, financial sector giants have ramped out their offerings. These include BNY Mellon, which announced the introduction of crypto custodial services and Morgan Stanley, which will roll out a bitcoin offering to wealth management clients and is reportedly mulling exposure in Bitcoin through its investment arm, Counterpoint Global. Goldman Sachs has also said it would offer investments in bitcoin and other digital assets to its wealth clients.

    Outside of the U.S., notable global banks that have also launched crypto offerings include Standard Chartered and DBS.

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  • HSBC Singapore Offers Flexibility as Employees Return

    HSBC Singapore Offers Flexibility as Employees Return

    The bank has outlined a vision for its approach to flexible and hybrid-location working and will give its employees the opportunity and choice to return to the office.

    HSBC Singapore’s Future of Work plans will be underpinned by ensuring customer focus; flexibility for how, when, and where employees work; and ensuring that its offices are designed and used to build collaboration and networks, according to a statement on Friday.

    Forward-looking companies are change-makers. This includes creating working environments that enable employees to set up arrangements that deliver high customer impact whilst suiting their personal lives, Brandon Coate, head of human resources, said.

    The bank, which has about 3,300 employees in Singapore, has made a number of policy, location, technology, and cultural changes in the past year, including becoming the anchor tenant of Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 2, which it moved to last year after its lease at 21 Collyer Quay ended.

    It will upgrade its offices at MBFC and at its split-site at Mapletree Business City, in preparation for a more permanent shift to hybrid and flexible working, the bank noted. This includes state-of-art design, technology, and sustainability, and moving from traditional fixed-desk seating to an activity-based workplace, where employees have a variety of individual and shared spaces available to work or collaborate with others.

    As more employees prepare to return to the workplace, following an extended period of working from home, HSBC said it will maintain operational and business continuity risk.

    For example, it is allowing a maximum of 65 percent of its total staff in the office, and not allowing cross-site deployment.

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  • HSBC Shifts Top Execs to Hong Kong

    HSBC Shifts Top Execs to Hong Kong

    HSBC will relocate some of its top executives from London to Hong Kong as the British lender places increasingly greater emphasis on the region.

    Global banking and markets co-head Greg Guyett, wealth and personal banking chief executive Nuno Matos, and global commercial banking chief executive Barry O’Byrne will relocate to Hong Kong in the second half of the year, according to an internal memo.

    They will also be joined later in the year by the bank’s head of asset management Nicolas Moreau.

    Though some other roles will also be shifted to join the top executives, there is no planned large-scale movement of jobs from London to Hong Kong.

    The relocated executives lead divisions that makeup nearly all of HSBC’s global revenue, signaling a stronger focus on Asia, which accounted for 59 percent of operating income in 2020.

    An important part of our global strategy is to base more of our leadership population in Asia, said HSBC CEO Noel Quinn in the note.

    The bank is undergoing restructuring to further focus its resources on growth opportunities in the region. Part of its plans includes redeployment of over $100 billion of capital to Asia, where it is particularly focused on investing in Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

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  • HSBC Swims Against Crypto Tide

    HSBC Swims Against Crypto Tide

    The bank banned customers of its online trading platform InvestDirect from adding MicroStrategy stock to their portfolios, calling them a «virtual currency product.

    HSBC has no appetite for direct exposure to virtual currencies [VCs] and limited appetite to facilitate products or securities that derive their value from VCs,» a HSBC spokesperson said in a statement.

    Last week, a message from the bank to InvestDirect customers dated March 29 surfaced on social media, saying that it will only allow the holding, sale and outgoing transfer of MicroStrategy shares, and will ban new purchases or incoming transfers.

    MicroStrategy, a business intelligence and cloud-based software company founded in 1989 by bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, currently holds about $5.5 billion in bitcoin, or about 80 percent of its $6.8 billion market capitalization.

    The company adopted a policy last year to primarily hold bitcoin instead of cash, and has been purchasing the cryptocurrency with its extra cash and paying its directors in BTC.

    HSBC said the ban on MicroStrategy follows its policy on cryptocurrencies, which has been in place since 2018. Its move comes against the growing number of financial firms and companies that are embracing cryptocurrencies.

    Other companies that also have large holdings of bitcoin on their balance sheets include carmaker Tesla and payments processor Square, though it is not clear if a similar ban would apply to their shares.

    Goldman Sachs has said it would offer investments in bitcoin and other digital assets to its wealth clients, while Morgan Stanley will roll out a bitcoin offering to wealth management clients.

    Outside of the U.S., notable global banks that have also launched crypto offerings include Standard Chartered and DBS.

    MicroStrategy shares soared on Tuesday, up about 18 percent to $848.5, as the price of bitcoin reached a new high of $63,000, 7 percent higher than the day before.

    The surge in investor interest comes ahead of a hotly anticipated direct listing of CoinBase, the U.S.’ largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Nasdaq on Wednesday.

  • HSBC Reopens Hong Kong Headquarters

    HSBC Reopens Hong Kong Headquarters

    HSBC has reopened its main Hong Kong office but is only advising critical staff to come in for work, according to an internal memo.

    Precautionary measures – such as wearing masks, pre-entry temperature screening, hand sanitizers, spaced queuing and portable acrylic screens at open banking counters – will continue to be in place, according to a statement from the bank, adding that it conducted deep cleaning and disinfection last week.

    The bank closed the office last week following a recent outbreak in a local gym popularly frequented by expatriates. Visitors who stayed within the building for over two hours between March 3 and 16 were required to undergo coronavirus tests.

    The gym-linked cluster has resulted in nearly 150 cases and has prompted other financial firms, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, to encourage more work-from-home measures.

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  • HSBC Launches Fund Administration Services in Thailand

    HSBC Launches Fund Administration Services in Thailand

    This move is in line with the change in the securities services landscape in Thailand, which has relaxed outsourcing rules to boost the efficiency of local fund managers’ operations.

    By outsourcing their back-office operations to HSBC, asset owners and managers will be able to focus on their core offerings, the bank said in an announcement on Tuesday.

    The service will be available on HSBC’s Multifonds fund administration platform. HSBC clients already have access to custody and fund supervisory services offered by the bank.

    “Our clients have expressed a keen desire to improve efficiency and reduce cost, reduce operational risk, adapt to their investors’ need and manage regulatory changes effectively, Utumporn Viranuvatti, HSBC head of securities services, Thailand, said in the announcement.

    The bank said it has many other offerings planned as a part of HSBC Securities Services’ Asia-first strategy to accelerate growth in the region by ramping up its investment in additional solutions and capabilities.

    HSBC has been expanding its offerings in Thailand as part of its bid to strengthen its Asean coverage. HSBC Private Bank launched its onshore business in the kingdom in February 2021, the bank’s second onshore business in the region after Singapore.

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  • HSBC Launches Fund Administration Services in Thailand

    HSBC Launches Fund Administration Services in Thailand

    This move is in line with the change in the securities services landscape in Thailand, which has relaxed outsourcing rules to boost the efficiency of local fund managers’ operations.

    By outsourcing their back-office operations to HSBC, asset owners and managers will be able to focus on their core offerings, the bank said in an announcement on Tuesday.

    The service will be available on HSBC’s Multifonds fund administration platform. HSBC clients already have access to custody and fund supervisory services offered by the bank.

    “Our clients have expressed a keen desire to improve efficiency and reduce cost, reduce operational risk, adapt to their investors’ need and manage regulatory changes effectively, Utumporn Viranuvatti, HCBC head of securities services, Thailand, said in the announcement.

    The bank said it has many other offerings planned a part of HSBC Securities Services’ Asia-first strategy to accelerate growth in the region by ramping up its investment in additional solutions and capabilities.

    HSBC has been expanding its offerings in Thailand as part of its bid to strengthen its Asean coverage. HSBC Private Bank launched its onshore business in the kingdom in February 2021, the bank’s second onshore business in the region after Singapore.

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  • Hong Kong Cross-Border Wealth Scheme Delayed by Pandemic

    Hong Kong Cross-Border Wealth Scheme Delayed by Pandemic

    Banks looking to capitalize on wealth management opportunities from the Greater Bay Area will have to wait until travel bans are lifted, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

    HKMA chief executive Eddie Yue said that the existing travel bans make it difficult to launch the ‘Wealth Management Connect’ scheme – a cross-border channel that will allow mainland residents of the 11-city cluster to invest in Hong Kong and Macau-based wealth management products.

    Under the current rules, investors seeking such products must physically open an investment account in person for the financial firm to share relevant information and risks.

    The overall scheme allows an individual investor quota of 1 million yuan ($150,000) each and an aggregate quota of 300 billion yuan (US$45 billion) for north and southbound fund movements.

    While it remains to be seen when travel restrictions will be removed – Hong Kong recently recorded another wave of coronavirus cases that led multiple banks to advise employees to work from home – HKMA is actively working with Beijing to simply the process for cross-border account opening.

    According to Yue, a simpler process could be introduced which would require only one-time cross-border travel, compared to the current practice which requires a plethora of documents and often multiple visits.

    Other cross-border initiatives that the HKMA is focused on include the southbound segment of the bond connect scheme which is planned for a launch in the second half of 2020 after the northbound segment was introduced in 2017. Unlike the wealth management connect scheme, cross-border trading does not require physical travel.

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  • Huawei Pushes for HSBC Disclosure in Hong Kong

    Huawei Pushes for HSBC Disclosure in Hong Kong

    After being rejected in the U.K., Huawei lawyers seek to make a similar push to pressure HSBC to unveil documents they claim will disprove accusations of fraud against chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

    After a 30-minute hearing at Hong Kong High Court, no ruling was deliberated on whether or not HSBC must provide specific documents related to accusations that Meng misled the British lender about business dealings with Iran during a 2013 meeting.

    If proven true, this could help prevent the Huawei CFO and daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei from being extradited to the U.S. to face trial.

    The information that Meng is seeking will «go to the heart of her ability to demonstrate that there were material omissions and misstatements» made in the attempt to extradite her to the U.S., according to a report citing a Huawei spokesperson, and that she has no other means to obtain them other than through court approval.

    The legal pressure against HSBC to disclose the allegedly revealing documents follow similar attempts made in the U.K. by Huawei lawyers which were rejected by a high court judge.

    Another one-day hearing for the case in Hong Kong is scheduled for April 12.

  • HSBC Scales Up Structured Product Capabilities

    HSBC Scales Up Structured Product Capabilities

    Luxury as an investment theme is poised to benefit from strong economic recovery led by Asian economies in the post-COVID-19 world. Against this background, HSBC has rolled out a new structured product linked to a customized index.

    In an effort to further the bank’s ambition of becoming Asia’s leading wealth management bank, HSBC scales up its structured product capabilities in Hong Kong and Malaysia. In addition to a wide array of products linked to standard and thematic market indices, the bank has rolled out a new structured product linked to a customized index, providing an investment opportunity for wealthy clients to capitalize on the growing luxury consumption in Asia, HSBC announced in a statement on Monday.

    Luxury spending from Asia, and in particular mainland China, already accounts for a significant portion of global luxury consumption. Luxury as an investment theme is poised to benefit from strong economic recovery led by Asian economies in the post-COVID-19 world.

    The growth of the wealth management market is unparalleled in Asia, underpinned by the expansion in high net worth population and the increase in their sophistication. Therefore, we are working closely with our Global Markets colleagues to bring innovative structured products to our customers. This index-linked structured product exemplifies our commitment to meet customers’ diverse wealth management needs aligned to prevalent investment themes, Maggie Ng, Head of Wealth and Personal Banking, Hong Kong, HSBC, said,

    HSBC’s new luxury index provides investors dynamic exposure to a list of global stocks that have high exposures to the luxury sector.

    To accelerate the growth of the wealth business in Asia, Global Markets continues to invest in our product manufacturing capabilities leveraging our market expertise, and deliver bespoke solutions for wealth clients, said Justin Chan, Head of Greater China, Global Markets, Asia-Pacific, HSBC.

    HSBC Global Research estimates that the luxury goods market in mainland China will likely achieve 48 percent growth in 2020, doubling its overall share of the global luxury market in 2020, with further growth expected through to 2025. We are also bullish on the sector due to the likely consolidation seen in the industry and the use of more affordable online sales channels», he added.

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