While banks have accelerated digital solutions across business lines, accomplishing end-to-end digitalization of global trade remains far beyond their reach. The complexity of supply-chain finance remains a challenge, and banks continue to hunt for scalable solutions. Embedded finance could be the answer.

As other investment banks cut staff, HSBC has been hiring to build a leading bank in tech and healthcare.

Despite its roots in the region, HSBC’s Asian woes have sometimes seemed endemic. It has been overly dependent on Hong Kong and too often caught in Sino-US crosshairs. But under regional co-CEOs Surendra Rosha and David Liao, the lender has regained its confidence, is more regionally diverse than ever, and is busy posting record profits.

HSBC remained formidable in the Hong Kong market over the past year and is now well positioned to reap the benefits of mainland China and Hong Kong’s post-Covid reopening.

It is not much fun being a banker in Argentina. But while it is pretty much universally tough for everyone, spare a thought for individuals like Juan Parma, HSBC’s chief executive Argentina and head of wealth and personal banking America. Because, while Parma’s peers in Argentine banks face many of the same challenges he does, at least for them the whole organization is still focused on the country. HSBC’s global leadership could be forgiven for skipping over the country in global strategy meetings.

Football clubs undergoing a period of transition often talk of needing a transfer window or two to get where they need to be. More often than not, this doesn’t work. Better-run teams continue to make clear-minded decisions that keep them ahead of the pack. Catching up is always hard to do.

It is no surprise that HSBC is Asia’s best bank for sustainable finance for the sixth year in a row. Across its commercial, retail, global banking, markets and securities, capital markets, trade finance and risk management teams, the lender has created an extensive sustainability knowledge base that few of its rivals can match.

Public-sector receptivity to innovation in sustainability and tokenization helped HSBC show the markets a glimpse of the future of bonds.

HSBC continues to lead from the front as trade finance reinvents itself.

All big banks say they are leaders in transaction services, few really are. HSBC is always in contention for this award and takes the honours after a year full of new services and innovation.

HSBC wins the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing this year. During the awards period the bank topped the equity capital markets league tables, completing 12 deals – more than any other financial institution – worth just over $4 billion, according to Dealogic.

For cross-border transactions, supply-side financing and capital markets, HSBC Amanah, led by chief executive Raja Amir Shah Raja Azwa, was the international Islamic bank to beat this year.

The chair of Ping An Asset Management has called again for the break-up of HSBC and spin off of its Asia assets. His argument is a strong and valid one; his problem is that none of the bank’s other main shareholders seems to care.

No matter what competitors do, contending with a 158-year-old banking major with a presence in 64 economies and a wealth balance the size of Australia’s gross domestic product is going to be hard. Especially if it has a knack for reinvention.

HSBC is named best digital private bank this year, in part thanks to the sheer scale of its user base and the ubiquity of its app, but also because of the firm’s constant reinvention.

No international lender is better at serving privately wealthy China clients wherever they are in the world than HSBC.

HSBC’s global head of trade finance talks about how the bank has built 'the trade finance platform for the future'.

HSBC runs towards the storm as others are fleeing it.

Patents are a high-profile demonstration of a bank’s commitment to innovation, but they are not the only option for those looking to encourage new ways of thinking.

Restrictions on upstream oil and gas financing aren’t the silver bullet that the sector needs to achieve its climate goals.

New platform acts as central account keeper under Luxembourg law for first ever sterling bond deal on blockchain.

The bank is focusing on organic growth by acquiring retail clients and launching a private bank.

HSBC’s outgoing CFO, Ewen Stevenson, has mounted a robust case for the bank’s cost performance in an intriguing call with analysts that also featured an appearance by his replacement, Georges Elhedery. As he prepares to leave the bank, Stevenson defended his legacy by taking on the firm’s arch-critic, Ping An.

Both HSBC and JPMorgan have recently boosted their digital trade finance offerings, as the ICC Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation commenced testing of digital trade systems between Singapore and the UK.

Georges Elhedery’s move to the CFO role at HSBC has raised eyebrows among observers seeking to decode it. What does it mean for Elhedery, what happened to incumbent Ewen Stevenson, and what does it say about CEO Noel Quinn?

A new platform aims to help get troublesome sustainable infrastructure projects financed. Its chief executive explains to Euromoney the ambitions and challenges ahead.

The failures of we.trade and HSBC’s Serai highlight the challenges that blockchain-based solutions face.

HSBC’s interim result shows that banks are drawing a line under pandemic-related provisions, while simultaneously setting aside new ones for the disease’s economic cure. All banks must make this transition, but HSBC has other things to worry about besides: a campaign from China’s Ping An to split the bank in half.

HSBC has dominated the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space for many years, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Middle East. There are many reasons why it deserves to be named the region’s best bank for sustainable finance.

Last year was one that saw HSBC in its best light in this region. The Middle East is not always an easy place in which to run a full-service investment bank. Some years are stellar; in others the well runs dry. But with energy prices up and governments committed to economic and financial diversification, there has never been a better time to be in the UK lender’s shoes.