HSBC’s third-quarter pre-tax profit more than doubles

Banking giant HSBC has credited the impact of higher interest rates as it revealed its third-quarter pre-tax profit more than doubled compared to the previous year.

The company said its pre-tax profit rose by 4.5 billion US dollars (£3.7 billion) to 7.7 billion US dollars (£6.4 billion), compared to the same period in 2022.

Profit after tax increased by 3.6 billion US dollars (£3 billion) to 6.3 billion US dollars (£5.2 billion), while revenue rose by 40% to 16.2 billion US dollars (£13.4 billion).

There was good broad-based growth across all businesses and geographies, supported by the interest rate environment

Meanwhile, the firm said operating expenses grew by 2% to 8 billion US dollars (£6.6 billion), driven primarily by higher technology costs, rising inflation and an increase in the company’s performance-related pay.

In a statement, group chief executive Noel Quinn said: “We have had three consecutive quarters of strong financial performance and are on track to achieve our mid-teens return on tangible equity target for 2023.

“There was good broad-based growth across all businesses and geographies, supported by the interest rate environment.

“Our Wealth business also gained further traction, attracting 34 billion US dollars (£28 billion) of net new invested assets in the quarter and growing wealth balances by 12% compared with last year.”

Mr Quinn continued: “We are pleased to again reward our shareholders. We have now announced three share buy-backs in 2023 totalling up to 7 billion US dollars (£5.8 billion), as well as three quarterly dividends which total 0.30 US dollars per share.

“This underlines the substantial distribution capacity that we have, even as we continue to invest in growth.”