Throughout 2023, HSBC expanded its presence in the mainland Chinese market, strengthening its operations and advancing strategic initiatives across many sectors.

HSBC introduced initiatives to tackle parental leave, diversity in its hiring process and to improve support for its transgender employees in Hong Kong last year.

In 2023, HSBC further solidified its position as Hong Kong’s best bank under the leadership of Luanne Lim, HSBC Hong Kong’s chief executive. HSBC Group’s market profit before tax soared to $10.7 billion, representing 80% year-on-year growth and contributing 35.3% to the group’s overall pre-tax profit.

HSBC helped Singaporean companies like Next Gen Foods and Multiplier Technologies expand overseas in 2023. It also scaled up its support for local businesses expansion in the region by introducing a $1 billion ASEAN (Association of southeast Asian Nations) growth fund for digital platform businesses and a $150 million venture debt offering aimed at scaling high growth companies.

HSBC is a powerhouse in sustainable finance in Asia: a multiple winner of this award and for good reason.

HSBC was the standout candidate in this award this year, dominating transaction banking in Asia.

The bank has become a global payments powerhouse, delivering innovation and outperformance.

For HSBC, 2023 was an important year at its UK ring-fenced bank. This delivered its strongest set of results since it was created in 2018, with revenue coming in 36% higher than in 2022. That was in part thanks to higher rates and fat net interest margins, but also to key strategic decisions, such as to make growing market share in mortgages a priority.

With a chief executive pushing sustainable finance from the very top, HSBC is leading from the front in the global banking industry’s response to the climate emergency.

In 2023, HSBC further solidified its position as Hong Kong’s best bank. Under the leadership of Luanne Lim, HSBC Hong Kong’s chief executive, the bank’s profit before tax soared to $10.7 billion, representing 80% year-on-year growth and contributing 35.3% to the group’s overall pre-tax profit.

Public-sector clients had to tackle rising rates and geopolitical uncertainty in 2023, while undergoing fundamental restructuring in their sector. HSBC was instrumental in guiding them through the uncertainty.

HSBC wins the award for western Europe’s best bank for transaction services thanks to the delivery of an impressive range of services to corporate treasurers that the bank has developed over years of heavy investment.

For the second year in a row, HSBC walks away with the award for Asia’s best bank – and deservedly so. Outgoing chief executive Noel Quinn’s decisive move in early 2020 to pivot to Asia by redeploying $100 billion in risk-weighted assets has delivered, generating strong new income streams and squeezing more gains from key product lines such as wealth management and transaction banking.

HSBC’s choice of a new CEO to replace Noel Quinn was long flagged. Elhedery’s fortune is to be handed the reins of power in an extended period of calm for the UK lender, which benefited immensely from Quinn’s calm stoicism. But deteriorating Sino-US relations mean that turbulence for the London- and Hong Kong-listed lender is sure to return.

The bank is targeting the often-overlooked service sector with structured solutions, along with identifying embedded finance as a fast-growing segment. With the launch of Global Trade Solutions, it goes beyond traditional product offerings and financing.

Though HSBC retrenched from other Latin American markets, it stayed in Mexico, and country chief Jorge Arce says that the bank is well-positioned to take advantage of the nation’s unique blend of structural growth drivers.

HSBC Saudi Arabia is named Saudi Arabia's best international Islamic bank this year, reflecting its strong performance across capital markets, where it took leading roles in some of the most important regional transactions.

HSBC Amanah has reinforced its position as the leading Islamic banking institution in Malaysia this year with robust financial performance and innovative product launches. The bank secures is name as the best international Islamic bank in the country as a result.

It takes structuring expertise, sophistication and a good read of markets to engineer shariah-compliant structured products that perform, especially amid an uncertain and volatile global macroeconomic and markets backdrop.

There are only a few truly global banking institutions that provide a full range of sophisticated shariah-compliant advice, products and services. HSBC leads this select group, making it Euromoney’s best international Islamic bank for 2024.

HSBC dominated the region’s debt capital markets across the awards period, completing 52 DCM transactions worth a total of $10.3 billion, according to data from Dealogic. In equity capital markets, the London-headquartered lender came second, completing seven deals worth $2 billion. It also ranked in initial stock offerings, completing six IPOs worth $1.38 billion in total.

In the face of increasing competition among regional and global banks, HSBC has again demonstrated its financing strength and expertise in the Middle East across the breadth of markets, sectors and geographies it is a leader in.

Last year was an important one for sustainable finance in the Middle East. Dubai hosted the COP28 conference, following on from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt in 2022. This has well and truly put the spotlight on sustainable finance for banks, corporates and sovereigns in the region.

Rumours that Chinese insurer Ping An could cut its stake in HSBC further, perhaps selling to a Middle East buyer at a time when Gulf investment is flooding into the People’s Republic, should not come as a surprise.

Restructuring HSBC, like painting the Forth bridge, is a never-ending job. While Noel Quinn has done well, the board must not make another ham-fisted transition.

In a region where most private-sector commercial activity is undertaken by family businesses, succession planning and wealth transfer could not be more important.

While the wealthy have excelled in accumulating and managing their assets, many still struggle with the complexities of passing them on. The urgency of succession planning was underscored by an HSBC Trustee survey in 2023, which found that 85% of global families are actively preparing successors for their business empires. This aligns with forecasts that about $18.3 trillion will change hands among high net-worth families by 2030.

Reports that the long-rumoured deal has been agreed suggest growing optimism among Argentine bankers about the new administration.

Some banks like the idea of external venture capitalists leading their venture businesses, but banker-led units are more likely to cement their inherent advantage.

Citi’s sale of its China consumer wealth portfolio to HSBC for $3.6 billion is a nuanced tale of two banks with increasingly different strategies. As HSBC tilts ever more toward Asia, Citi proves ever more inclined to see all financial services through a global prism.