HSBC’s growth accelerated in the fourth quarter of 2021 fuelled by commercial lending as the bank almost doubled its pretax profit.
Reported pretax profit rose by $1.3bn to $2.7bn in the three months to the end of December as revenue rose 2% to $12bn and costs fell. The results showed a doubling in the rate of revenue growth, which was 1% in the previous quarter.
HSBC’s annual profit more than doubled as lower bad debts more than made up for reduced revenue at Britain’s biggest bank. Pretax profit rose to $18.9bn from $8.8bn as revenue dipped 2% to $49.6bn.
The FTSE 100 lender released $0.9bn of bad debt charges during 2021 after setting aside $8.8bn a year earlier because of the pandemic. HSBC took a $0.5bn bad debt charge in the fourth quarter including an increase for Chinese real estate.
The bank declared a second interim dividend of $0.18 cents a share, taking the annual payout to $0.25 cents – up from $0.15 cents a year earlier but less than the $0.30 cents in 2019. HSBC also said it would buy back $1bn of shares when the current $2bn buyback ends.
Noel Quinn, HSBC’s chief executive, said: “We made good progress against our strategy in 2021, which contributed to a strong financial performance that was supported by the global economic recovery. All of our regions were profitable and we saw growth in the fourth quarter of 2021 in many of our business lines.
“We have good momentum coming into 2022 and are confident that we can continue to execute against our strategy. We also remain cognisant of the potential impact that further Covid-19-related uncertainty and continued inflation might have on us and our clients.”
