If this change is approved, it could signal that UK and U.S. regulators are comfortable with the renewed ascendancy of investment banking.

Jim Antos

Categorized in : Company News

The fact that in both cases an investment banker has moved in, rather than a commercial banker, suggests that the risk reward trade-off emphasizing supposedly low risk business has not succeeded only six years after the global financial crisis.

Overall, the statement is what we expected: an opportunity missed to restore investor confidence. HSBC may be shrinking slowly but it remains one of the world's most complex banks.

The share price has been dead for several years now. What the market is looking for is something pretty substantial like a new strategy, a new theme, they've had tens of thousands of job cuts already and it's not been the answer so far. It's repeating the same pattern.

HSBC operates one of the 10 largest U.S. banking holding companies and so for them to relocate into a perceived Chinese regulatory jurisdiction could be challenging, all the bank's main regulators -- UK, U.S., Hong Kong and maybe Singapore -- would have to agree, and that process if it took a year would be very fast.

Can HKMA regulate an institution the size of HSBC? They would have to hire in more staff, expand the scope of their coverage and communicate more with other regulators.