By Shashank Didmishe
London-based lender HSBC Holdings Plc on Monday reported an increase of $800 million in its profit after tax to $9.2 billion in the six months ended June 30, which includes, a $1.8 billion gain on the recognition of a deferred tax asset from historical losses.
The bank’s India operations reported a profit before tax of $644 million, up 22% y-o-y as against previous year. India is the bank’s fourth-largest contributor to the profit of HSBC Holdings Plc, after Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Mainland China. India operations profit before tax is 7% of its global reported profit before tax of $9.2 billion. Its adjusted profit before tax stands at $10.7 billion.
HSBC’s India operations consist of global banking and markets, commercial banking, wealth management and personal banking and corporate banking. Global Banking & Markets operations, which provides financial services and products to corporates, governments and institutions, contributes the highest share of profits to India operations at $324 million.
“HSBC India has aggressive growth plans and is focused on customer acquisition and growth in balance sheet (assets and liabilities). The bank is looking to meaningfully grow the number of customers across all segments and plans to double, triple or quadruple its customer base across segments,” the lender said in a press release.
The bank plans to focus on retail and MSME business in India and has also allocated a $250 million for lending to startups. The bank is also investing in improving its digital capabilities by using data at the front-end and artificial intelligence at the back-end.
At a global level, the bank is expecting a mid-single digit percentage lending growth in 2022 and has guided for net interest income (NII) of at least $31 billion for 2022 and $37 billion for 2023.
