Europe's biggest bank HSBC said profits in the third quarter and for the year to date were "well ahead" of a year ago as bad debts continued to fall, mainly in the United States.
HSBC, which named a new chairman and chief executive six weeks ago after a damaging boardroom power struggle, today said impairments in the third quarter fell to their lowest quarterly level since early 2007.
HSBC said trading revenues for global banking and markets, its investment banking arm, were lower in the latest quarter than a year ago, but remained high by historical standards. GBM made a first-half profit of $5.6 billion, its second best half ever.
The bank does not report full quarterly results.
It made a pretax profit of $11.1 billion for the first six months of the year, more than double a year earlier as US impairments dropped.
Reuters
