One of the top banks in the world, HSBC, has released remarkable financial statistics for the first half of 2023, with a net profit that more than doubled from the same time last year to $18.1 billion. Profit before taxes for the bank increased 147% year over year to $21.7 billion from $8.78 billion in H1 2022.
The astounding numbers were influenced in part by particular occurrences, such as a $2.1 billion reversal of an impairment related to the anticipated sale of its retail banking business in France and a provisional gain of $1.5 billion from the purchase of Silicon Valley Bank UK.
The HSBC board authorized a second interim dividend of $0.10 per share in light of the good performance and announced a further share purchase of up to $2 billion, which is anticipated to be finished within three months. Noel Quinn, the CEO of HSBC, expressed confidence that, if everything goes according to plan, the bank would reach pre-pandemic dividend levels this year. In both 2018 and 2019, the bank distributed a total dividend of $0.51 and $0.30. In order to attain a 50% payment ratio before the end of the year, it has already announced two interim dividends for 2022 of $0.10 each, bringing the total dividends paid to $0.20.
The bank’s income increased significantly year over year by 50%, hitting $36.9 billion in the first half of 2023. Due to rising interest rates, HSBC attributed this gain to greater net interest revenue across all of its international operations. With a net interest margin of 1.70%, which is an improvement of 46 basis points from the prior year, net interest income for the first half was reported at $18.3 billion, a 36% rise from the prior year.
Strong revenue growth across all business lines and product categories was credited with HSBC’s impressive performance. CEO Noel Quinn emphasized that strong fee revenue and trading income were important contributing elements in addition to the effect of interest rates.
HSBC reported an 89% growth in pre-tax earnings in the second quarter alone, above experts’ predictions. Pre-tax earnings for the second quarter of 2023 were $8.77 billion, above the $7.96 billion consensus estimate. The net profit for the quarter was $6.64 billion, which was higher than experts’ expectations of $6.35 billion and represents a 27% increase from the same time previous year. The total revenue for the second quarter of 2023 was $16.71 billion, a significant 38% rise over the same period in 2022.
These outstanding results were announced, and the Hong Kong-listed shares of HSBC increased by 1.23%. The bank’s solid financial results during the first half of 2023 point to a promising future and solidify its status as a key participant in the global banking industry.
