HSBC Move To Hong Kong 'Likely'

[Ignitionnet]

HSBC reveals plans to quit London for Hong Kong

HSBC has told its biggest shareholders that it is preparing to quit London in a shock move that the bank has revealed to key investors is now "more likely than not".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...Hong-Kong.html

HSBC didn't take funding from the tax payer but are being driven away by increased regulation in terms of capital requirements and taxation.

Prize to the first person to say 'Good riddance.' without thinking it through.

EDIT: As a note the BBC report that HSBC say they've no plans to do so, could just be a bit of a PR exercise.

[Hom3r]

Well it does stand for Hong Kong and Shanghi Banking Corporation.

But it doesn't surprise me, the local companies I worked for I moved.

First company moved to Lanarkshire.

Second company hasn't moved yet, but from people I know inside the company ay it sounds like its moving to Scotland.

Third company moved to Belgium

[Ignitionnet]

No offence meant Hom3r but losing the income of the 5th largest bank in the world is at a slightly different scale from 'local companies' and would be moved for somewhat different reasons than a move to Lanarkshire / Scotland.

[Traduk]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...Hong-Kong.html

HSBC didn't take funding from the tax payer but are being driven away by increased regulation in terms of capital requirements and taxation.

Prize to the first person to say 'Good riddance.' without thinking it through.

The only people who would say good riddance are those who do not really know how much of UK GDP is dependent on banking activity. OK so they screwed up big time by getting involved with USA inspired exotic loan instruments but the massive tax take from the banking sector under-pinned Labour's spend, spend policies.

The banks will recover as will global finance but if via the politics of envy and the animosity generated by the media feeding frenzy we are sidelined as that recovery takes place, we as a country will be a lot poorer if HSBC is just the first of many to leave.

The banks in the City are involved in a very big way with currency transactions involving trillions. Huge money is made through being in the money flow as fees are charged which although are tiny, a little of trillions soon becomes billions. We cannot afford to lose the status of a one of the major clearers of mega financial transactions and as they are electronic, that world is truly a global village with the players able to go wherever suits.

The finger pointing at the banks and politically inspired bank bashing may prove to be a pyrrhic victory leaving the UK severely injured.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...Hong-Kong.html

HSBC didn't take funding from the tax payer but are being driven away by increased regulation in terms of capital requirements and taxation.

Prize to the first person to say 'Good riddance.' without thinking it through.

Never been a fan of tarring the entire sector with the same brush, HSBC didn't take public money and seems to have been a much better run bank that it's rivals. I bank with them and, to the extent you can be pleased with a bank, I am pleased with them. Always good service.

However I don't think they will win sympathy by complaining of increased regulation, as an outsider it seems desperately needed. My parents work with people with physical disabilities and people with learning difficulties. They are seeing their co-workers being laid off and the services, especially for the latter, being dramatically scaled back to the extent that only 'level 1' priorities can be catered for and even then some services reduced. I don't think banks are the victims of the governments measures, especially how meek those measures targeted towards banks are.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Damien

Never been a fan of tarring the entire sector with the same brush, HSBC didn't take public money and seems to have been a much better run bank that it's rivals.

However I don't think they will win sympathy by complaining of increased regulation, as an outsider it seems desperately needed.

On the other hand from their point of view it isn't needed - they did a good job of spreading and compartmentalising their risk so that, without the additional regulation, they weren't in strife and remained well funded as a group.

I have to admit being surprised that any bank wants to be based in Europe at the moment which is really not good for us.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

On the other hand from their point of view it isn't needed - they did a good job of spreading and compartmentalising their risk so that, without the additional regulation, they weren't in strife and remained well funded as a group..

Yeah but other banks were not. Regulation would have to apply to them all and since we decided that we don't want (can't?) let the banks fail then we cannot simply be of the opinion that the banks that screw up will get what's coming to them.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

EDIT: As a note the BBC report that HSBC say they've no plans to do so, could just be a bit of a PR exercise.

not sure about a PR exercise ,blackmail seems closer to the mark .Mervyn King announces that we are in danger of another banking crisis unless proposed reforms are pushed through ,HSBC announce they will quit London if proposed reforms are pushed through .The fact that they didn't take any tax payers money puts them in a strong position to issue such threats

Update

In a joint statement, both the bank's top executives, the group chairman and chief executive said the talk was "speculative and presumptuous".

The bank moved its corporate base from Hong Kong to London 19 years ago.

In a rare joint statement, HSBC's chairman Douglas Flint and chief executive Stuart Gulliver, said: "Talk of imminent change in HSBC's position on this matter is entirely speculative and presumptuous.

"London continues to be widely recognised as one of the world's leading international financial centres, a position it has built over many decades through deliberate policy action. We have been very clear that it is our preference to remain headquartered [here]."

However, it went on to say that the issue of rising costs - and a new government-imposed banking levy - was one that concerned its owners, the shareholders.

[Ignitionnet]

That's good that they are showing some patience. Hopefully the upcoming pro-growth budget will contain measures to incentivise enterprise in all natures and sizes right up to the HSBCs of the world and reward their forbearance in the face of a lot of legislation which is centred around populism and catharsis rather than solving the actual issues of the crisis.

[AndyCambs]

Barclays could move their HQ to Dubai, and Standard Chartered move to Singapore.
It would see the decline in importance of the City as the world's trading and financial centre.

... And it would leave those institutions with all the headaches that come with a major international move, such as loss of expertise and the hard cost of moving. They all say they could do it, and they talk up the mobility of their top people, but if it were that easy they would be actually doing it, and not petulantly mumbling about it.

[Osem]

I'm sure most of these banks would prefer to stay here but, having said that, I've no doubt they can and would move elsewhere if it suited them for financial and/or regulatory reasons and I can see HSBC heading East in the not too distant future. What those who insist on whining about 'the banks' need to understand is that a) they didn't all take taxpayer's money, b) they didn't all make the same mistakes and c) we desperately need the revenue they provide via corporation tax and indeed taxes on bonuses etc. paid to staff. Some people just don't seem to get that the banks that failed have been bailed out and if we're to have any chance of getting all that money back for the UK taxpayer we need the banking sector to remain strong and profitable. I've heard so many people say we should just let them and the fat cats all go and be done with it. Well, since the damage has been done and the money already stumped up, in what way does that serve the interests of the UK taxpayer? How does losing all that tax and the jobs (direct and indirect) that go with the banks serve the UK?... Having spent so much I'd have thought the best policy would be to create an environment in which the mistakes cannot be repeated and the taxpayer gets their money back from a successful, well governed, UK based banking sector.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
HSBC didn't take funding from the tax payer but are being driven away by increased regulation in terms of capital requirements and taxation.

Originally Posted by Osem

I'm sure most of these banks would prefer to stay here but, having said that, I've no doubt they can and would move elsewhere if it suited them for financial and/or regulatory reasons and I can see HSBC heading East in the not too distant future. What those who insist on whining about 'the banks' need to understand is that a) they didn't all take taxpayer's money,

ALL banks benefited financially from the bail out as all borrowed money from the Bank of England for next to nothing and lent it at considerably higher rate, Bob Diamond himself agreed and I suspect access to those funds doesn't just happen in bail out years.

[Ignitionnet]

The BoE's loans are nothing, at all, to do with bailouts. The BoE has long been the lender of last resort and its loans are most certainly not done for 'next to nothing' the rate is quite punitive compared with the wholesale markets as far as I'm aware.