ANKARA: The CEO of UK lender HSBC issued a strong warning to the bank’s business in Turkey, saying it needs to fix certain problems before “more extreme” solutions are taken.
HSBC also named its Brazil, US and Mexico operations as those that will need to shape up within one to two years or possibly face more serious measures.
“We’re involved at the moment in fortnightly calls … on Brazil, Mexico, United States and Turkey, which are clearly the four which present the biggest problems in this regard (improving them),” CEO Stuart Gulliver told a conference call after HSBC reported a 17 percent drop in pretax profit.
The four countries are four of HSBC’s most important. It has 21,000 staff in Brazil, 17,000 in Mexico and 15,000 in the US, and has pinpointed Turkey as one of its priority growth markets.
The UK lender has been beset by difficulties, as it was unearthed this week that Gulliver had stashed millions of pounds in a bank in the company’s Swiss group. The bank’s Geneva branch was raided last week by Swiss officials.
A total of 3,015 wealthy individuals from Turkey have opened accounts in HSBC’s Swiss branch, depositing in them roughly $3.4 billion in order to dodge taxes and circumvent domestic tax authorities, a huge collection of leaked bank account information recently revealed.
