HSBC puts up good Q1 performance

Asserting that it is “well-positioned” to tide over the economic uncertainty, European banking major HSBC Holdings Plc has reported good first quarter results and saw strong growth in India during the same period.

The British entity saw higher “underlying pre-tax profit” for the first three months of 2009 compared with the year-ago period.

“Underlying pre-tax profit was well ahead of first quarter 2008, assisted by substantial fair value gains on our own debt. Excluding these gains, pre-tax profits were lower, but significantly higher than in fourth quarter 2008,” HSBC said in an interim management statement On Monday.

HSBC’s Group Chief Executive Officer Michael Geoghegan said the firm is “well-positioned to ride out the economic uncertainty ahead, and to take advantage of opportunities to grow.”

HSBC joins the league of British banking majors — Barclays and Standard Chartered — which reported strong first quarter results last week.

“Asia has proven resilient, with China and India continuing to grow robustly, particularly China where stimulus initiatives have clearly had a direct domestic impact,” HSBC’s Group Chairman Stephen Green said.

The first quarter was also boosted by “record quarterly results” in Global Banking and Markets business. The segment witnessed strong performances in foreign exchange and interest rate trading, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the firm pointed out that increases in loan impairment charges were most notable in the relatively smaller portfolios in Latin America, the West Asia and India.