HSBC nearly made enough profit (after tax) in 2025 to acquire Maybank (Malaysia’s largest bank), in cash. Edit: This calculation is a little wrong, HSBC profit was reported in USD and I checked the MYR price in GBP, so actually it was short by about 10B, but that’s still only an extra half year.
This is my point - HSBC has the money to make market conquering acquisitions and doesn’t hold enough stake in any of these markets to have to sell half of the assets they’re acquiring.
Malaysia is a large middle income country - to acquire a bank somewhere like Bahrain… they should be able to just outright make the purchase.
Australia… maybe not so much, but they could afford to buy ANZ (the smallest ‘Big 4’ bank in AU) with 2 years of profits after tax.
Lots of banks could buy each other out, and form a super bank. But again, why would HSBC pour billions into an acquisition or rejuvenation of a market, to make a small margin or return? That capital can be better used elsewhere.
Its margin dilutive, value destructive, and negative synergies.
Better doing what? HSBC has already conquered the UK market. How much more oomph can they actually get of each £1 here?
Taking a new market on means all the money is new money. Is it valuable today? Not as valuable as HSBC for sure, but companies shouldn’t be working on 3 month profit reports.
Malaysia is a fast growing economy with a large workforce that speaks English, Chinese and Malay. Investing now to secure a market that sees good growth prospects is a W in my book. British companies shouldn’t be opposed to losing a bit of money in the process of seeking expansion.
HSBC hasn’t conquered anything. Hence why they decided to focus on UK/HK. And then focus on parts of Asia and The America’s that give a return.
Malaysia yes is growing. (Also a great place. My sister lives there and I love going! Great people. And the islands have beaches that are superior to the Bahamas) but it won’t justify the £bns needed.
HSBC is retreating to where they can win. Not trying to conquer the world like RBS.
Out of the UK, ABN Amro also tried that. As did Merill Lynch, Lehman Brothers etc in their own way. Have a look at why global domination isn’t a strategy anymore.
Unsure how you’ve reached this conclusion. Also, HSBC aren’t focussing on customer numbers. Quality matters more than quantity when it comes to banking customers.
It’s quite obvious from the level of advertising across the UK right now, that Premier is their focus for growth. LBG/NWG/Barclays continue to dominate the mass affluent market.
I seem to recall that Lloyds have almost 3 times as many UK mass affluent customers as HSBC (3 million vs 1 million). No doubt HSBC would quite like to invert this statistic.
20+% of the UK is a conquered market place IMO. Yes, mass affluent could be bigger, but trying to compete with Lloyds who have their entire basket in the UK is just daft (IMO). You don’t need to kill everyone in your market if you can make a good profit and have other places making money.
Like, even Lloyds has been branching out into other things to expand recently, with Curve and also some other acquisitions.
I guess someone at HSBC has ran the numbers though, the people using them for the world’s bank stuff is probably worth losing to gain market share in core markets.
The 20% figure is irrelevant, as those are mainstream customers. A single Premier customer will be the equivalent of many of those mainstream customers.
Well… perhaps someone should tell David Lindberg, so he can stand down his team. He is clearly unaware that he has already conquered the UK. Reccan has spoken.
I like the fact you are strongly opinionated, I am too. It can be a little grating at times though.
Yes. They wouldn’t be investing such huge sums of money without strong evidence that it’s worth spending. You can’t go anywhere without seeing Premier adverts right now. Their data is clearly telling them that the UK is the right market to spend resources on.
They may well still enter other markets in the future, nothing is permanent.
Going back to my consultant days - most of the base may actually be loss making/near zero value. Just because X company has Y million customers with Z percent share doesn’t mean they are earning net positive from those customers.
Premier is indeed where HSBC UK wants to be. They want high earning customers current accounts to cross sell high quality mortgages, low risk credit card debts, and personal loans.
Anyone know how long it takes for a new credit card to appear in the money trends? Been 2 weeks now and still not appeared , whereas current account works.
I saw a post yesterday. Someone said HSBC sends a text confirmation when you meet criteria. This is after they called to ask if they are eligible. They also got FD, no text for them.
Same as me.
Ah damn. I’m also not technically eligible as I’ve had a FD bonus this year but was banking on them not checking. Still have about 50 of the 60 days they give themselves to pay the bonus so I won’t completely lose out hope yet.
