While the reported profit showed the impact of one-off items, underlying profit for last year rose across the bank. The wealth management side of HSBC showed stronger results.

HSBC yesterday announced pre-tax profit for 2025 of $29.9 billion, falling from $32.3 billion a year before. The decline was mainly due to a $4.9 billion impact from notable items, the UK/Hong Kong-listed banking group said.

Notable items last year included $2.1 billion of dilution and impairment losses related to its associate Bank of Communications Co, reserve recycling losses of $1.5 billion after HSBC completed its sale of its French retained portfolio of home and other loans, legal provisions of $1.4 billion, and restructuring and related costs of $1.0 billion.

On a constant currency basis, and when notable items are stripped out, profit before tax rose $2.4 billion year-on-year to $36.6 billion, helped by a “strong” performance from HSBC’s wealth, Hong Kong businesses, and wholesale transaction banking. This was partly outweighed by a rise in expected credit losses and credit impairment charges.

Since the start of 2026, shares in HSBC have risen 14.8 per cent (as of 14:00 London time yesterday).

“HSBC’s bullish outlook provided cheer, with shareholders enthused about the revised guidance and increased revenues for the year, despite one-off costs denting annual profits by more than expected,” Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist, Wealth Club, said in a note.

Operating costs rose 10 per cent on a year ago to $36.4 billion. 

HSBC said it had a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – its capital shock absorber – of 14.9 per cent; the bank’s board approved a fourth interim dividend of $0.45 per share, equating to $0.75 per share for the year.

Looking ahead, the bank said it is targeting a return on tangible equity of 17 per cent or higher for this year, 2027 and 2028, when notable items are excluded. It is targeting revenue growth from this year to 2028, rising to 5 per cent in 2028 from 2027. It expects banking net interest income of at least $45 billion this year.

Wealth
Within the international wealth and corporate banking division, HSBC logged pre-tax profit, on a constant currency basis, of $4.367 billion in 2025, rising 14.6 per cent on the year before. This division accounted for 12.3 per cent of the total profit. 

"Wealth fee and other income across all our businesses was $9.4 billion, up 24 per cent,” Georges Elhedery, group CEO, said in his statement. He said that at the end of 2025, bank-wide wealth balances were $2.1 trillion, of which more than $1 trillion was booked in Asia.

“Given the importance of managing customer deposits as well as their invested assets, we are changing our wealth disclosures. In 2026, we will replace invested assets (2025: $1.5 trillion) with a new calculation of wealth balances. The new disclosure adds our wealth customers' deposits of $608 billion and removes $580 billion of asset management third-party distribution assets. On this new basis, wealth balances in 2025 were $1.6 trillion,” he said. 

The Hong Kong business segment of HSBC accounted for 28.2 per cent of the profit total; the UK was 21.1 per cent; corporate and institutional banking was 34.8 per cent; and the corporate centre arm was 3.6 per cent.