Asian gains help HSBC profits rise to £12bn despite increase in bad debts

HSBC, Britain's biggest bank, has rounded off the banking sector's results season with a ten per cent increase in pre-tax profit to £12.2 billion, helped by strong gains in Asia.

The bank, which last year opened a flagship branch on Princes Street, also said its total charges for bad debts and other credit provisions in 2007 were £8.7bn, up from £5.4bn the year before, with a big hit coming from the US sub-prime mortgage fallout.

HSBC has been by far the UK bank worst affected by the financial crisis in the US housing market with the bank shutting hundreds of branches in its US consumer banking division, HSBC Finance Corporation, (HFC).

Some investors have called on chief executive Michael Geoghegan and his board to sever all ties with HFC and focus instead on growing markets in Asia.

Meanwhile, Barclays, the country's third-biggest bank, today entered into the Russian retail banking market with a £373m deal to buy Moscow-based Expobank.