The London-headquartered bank also reported a delay in the time frame for the completion of the sale of its Canada business, a key part of its strategy to shrink in slow-growing Western markets where it lacks scale.
The bank said the planned $10 billion sale, originally slated to be completed by the end of this year, will now only likely go through in the first quarter of 2024. HSBC has tried recently to accelerate its pivot to Asian markets, in part to head off calls from its biggest shareholder Ping An Insurance Group Co of China to spin off the Asia unit to boost shareholder returns.
It announced a dividend of $0.10 per share, its first quarterly dividend since 2019, following calls of shareholders to increase the dividend payout. The lender also flagged the first of a new cycle of buybacks of up to $2 billion.
HSBC, in common with other British lenders, reported deposit outflows for the quarter, if those it acquired by bailing out the local arm of failed U.S. lender Silicon Valley Bank were discounted.
Big European banks have reported deposits falling as consumers faced with a cost of living crisis shop around for higher-paying products such as fixed-term deposits and investment funds.
Despite the surging profit, HSBC did not raise its key performance target of reaching a return on tangible equity of at least 12% from this year onwards, while analysts were estimating the key metric would be lifted.
(Reporting by Selena Li ing Kong Kong and Lawrence White in
London; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
