The HSBC chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, has admitted the bank has “sometimes failed to live up to the standards” expected of it, in his first public comments after a week of revelations about practices at its Swiss private banking subsidiary.
In a memo to circulated to staff discussing the “painful” allegations, he said: “I share your frustration that the media focus on historical events makes it harder for people to see the efforts we have made to put things right.”
The Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe has said the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) could look into the allegations against HSBC. He said the PRA was not yet at the stage of investigating the bank but the allegations could be “of relevance” to the authority.
Gulliver said in his memo that the media coverage would continue “for a bit”, and said he wished to put it in context. He pointed out that it was eight years ago that a former employee of the Swiss private bank hacked into the bank’s internal systems to obtain the data that formed the basis of the leaks.
Gulliver said media organisations had focused on 140 names included in the data, and said many had been publicised “simply because they are well-known individuals”.
“The vast majority of these 140 people are no longer clients. Several of them were exited long before the data was stolen. In fact, one was exited in 1991,” he said.
Gulliver said there had also been mention of individuals who were never clients, and there had been talk of 100,000 clients when at its peak the Swiss private bank had about 30,000 accounts.
He added: “Since 2008, our Swiss private bank has been completely overhauled. Today, of the 140 clients named, 106 are no longer with the bank.”
Gulliver said that since 2008, and especially since a new management team took control in 2011, HSBC had fundamentally changed the way it was run, “with much tighter central control”.
He said the bank had been putting in place world-class financial crime, regulatory compliance and tax transparency standards, enforced by a compliance team of more than 7,000 people, more than twice the number it had in 2011. HSBC’s Swiss private bank had cut its number of accounts by 70%.
Gulliver told staff: “You have been working tirelessly and with great dedication to build a stronger HSBC with fully global businesses and functions, rigorous controls and the highest global standards, all underpinned by a clear strategy to serve our millions of loyal customers.”
Gulliver, along with HSBC’s chairman, Douglas Flint, have been asked to appear before parliamentary committee hearings.
