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Tag: HSBC

  • HSBC Rolls Out Digital Wallet for SMEs in Singapore

    HSBC Rolls Out Digital Wallet for SMEs in Singapore

    The bank has launched a digital wallet for businesses in Singapore, which enables them to send, receive and hold cash in multiple currencies.

    HSBC’s Digital Wallet, which aims to significantly reduce the time it takes for SMEs to make business payments, is also being launched in the U.K. and the U.S., with a pipeline of further markets as well as new currencies and enhancements, the bank said in an announcement.

    The multi-currency wallet is integrated into its business banking platform HSBCnet, and removes the need for businesses to use third-party providers for international transactions, HSBC said. For example, businesses in Singapore can pay their Malaysia counterparts directly in ringgit.

    Li Lian Ng, HSBC’s head of business banking, Singapore, said the bank is committed to scaling up its SME banking capabilities in Singapore. The bank previously announced its strategy to scale-up its SME business and increase its share in the market to 15 percent by 2021.

    Since then, it has launched a number of products and initiatives for SMEs, including the online banking platform HSBCnet, Green Loans, the «Pioneer» programme for fast growing businesses, international business banking, and a not-for-profit proposition.

    HSBC said that Singapore’s SMEs are doubling down on their international connectivity and prioritizing resilience in their supply chains, with 87 percent planning to expand their international business, citing a survey conducted among local businesses with annual revenue between S$5 million and S$100 million.

    Drawing on HSBC’s deep digital expertise and wide global network, we are helping SMEs to build resilience and trust within their global supply chains whilst making everyday banking easier, Ng said.

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  • Digital Dominates Wealth Sales for HSBC

    Digital Dominates Wealth Sales for HSBC

    Digital channels dominated HSBC’s retail wealth management business in Asia, making up a dominant majority of sales in the unit.

    Nearly 80 percent of HSBC’s retail wealth sales were conducted through its digital channels, according to a statement from the bank.

    The strong adoption is driven by a multi-billion dollar push to expand HSBC’s wealth management ambitions in the region.

    Our $3.5 billion investments are underway, enabling us to deliver a robust start in Asia this year across the full spectrum of our wealth clients, said Asia head of wealth and personal banking Greg Hingston.

    The bank also posted strong regional inflows with $6.6 billion of net new money for the private banking arm and $3.3 billion for the asset management arm – a whopping 89 percent and over 400 percent increase.

    In the quarter, the two units made up 50 percent and 29 percent of the global private banking and asset management businesses, respectively.

    The bank will also maintain its hiring plans to add more than 5,000 client-facing wealth roles over the next five years, including relationship managers.

    According to the statement, it is on track to hiring 1,000 of those roles in 2021.

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  • Digital Dominates Wealth Sales for HSBC

    Digital Dominates Wealth Sales for HSBC

    Digital channels dominated HSBC’s retail wealth management business in Asia, making up a dominant majority of sales in the unit.

    Nearly 80 percent of HSBC’s retail wealth sales were conducted through its digital channels, according to a statement from the bank.

    The strong adoption is driven by a multi-billion dollar push to expand HSBC’s wealth management ambitions in the region.

    Our $3.5 billion investments are underway, enabling us to deliver a robust start in Asia this year across the full spectrum of our wealth clients, said Asia head of wealth and personal banking Greg Hingston.

    The bank also posted strong regional inflows with $6.6 billion of net new money for the private banking arm and $3.3 billion for the asset management arm – a whopping 89 percent and over 400 percent increase.

    In the quarter, the two units made up 50 percent and 29 percent of the global private banking and asset management businesses, respectively.

    The bank will also maintain its hiring plans to add more than 5,000 client-facing wealth roles over the next five years, including relationship managers.

    According to the statement, it is on track to hiring 1,000 of those roles in 2021.

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  • Vietnam stock market daily trading value closes in on Singapore

    Vietnam stock market daily trading value closes in on Singapore

    The average daily securities trading value surged 5.6 times year-on-year in April to $725 million, nearly equivalent to that of Singapore, according to HSBC.

    The lender said in a recent report that the figure, which far exceeds those of Malaysia and Indonesia, was due to the increase in new investors and recovery of the economy.

    In March, the number of new trading accounts hit a record 113,900, taking the total to over 3.02 million.

    The economic recovery is underpinned by strong FDI flows, improvements in the manufacturing segment, and increased consumption, the report said.

    The benchmark VN-Index has risen 12.9 percent in the year-to-date compared to 4.2 percent for Asia ex-Japan.

    The index has repeatedly scaled new peaks this year after surpassing the psychological barrier of 1,204 points first reached in 2018.

    HSBC expected the market to continue to rise in the absence of alternative asset classes and bank deposit rates in decline.

    Though foreign investors have been pulling out of the stock market, HSBC said they would not be able to ignore Vietnam for much longer since it has proved to be one of the most resilient growth economies and 24 out of the 30 blue chips have still not reached the foreign cap.

    Besides, despite rising to record levels, the VN-Index remains 5 percent lower than its five-year average level with a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.1.

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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.

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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.

  • 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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