According to The Business Review HSBC plans to grow their business in 2009. For investors and shareholders the news should be reassuring. Most businesses plan for positive rewarding results in 2009. My friend’s retail business was relatively unaffected by bad economic times in 2007 and 2008, and will grow in 2009. It is an international business, a partnership, privately controlled, and the responsibility is his. The difference between his business and HSBC is that he does it honestly.
HSBC Bank said it would stick to a familiar strategy for 2009. That’s what concerns many people. Just take a quick look at our complaints blog to see trends that run unabated. Sustaining an original intensity or maintaining full force with no decrease, HSBC is not worried about class action suits. Smug in their belief that it is perfectly acceptable to define late payments as “anything not received five days before the due date” HSBC continues shady practices set in motion over ten years ago.
If HSBC continues to target developing nations the bank is overlooking the fact that subprime started in the United States, and HSBC is one of the largest subprime players. Investigations continue, and sooner or later the blame for poisoning the economies of other nations will come back to HSBC and others. Anyone in Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and Arab nations can Google “Major subprime lenders United States” to find the truth. In Mar 2007 London Marketwatch identified HSBC as “One of the most aggressive players in the U.S. market for low quality mortgages.”
The BBC and others wrote many articles about HSBC and Household International and resulting subprime losses. Can foreign leaders ask the question “Who poisoned our banks?” Certainly, and the trail leads right back to HSBC. Will families in the United Kingdom have a great love for HSBC credit cards when the default interest rate is near 40 percent? We doubt it.
When the time comes for HSBC to raise capital, and that time will indeed comes soon, HSBC will find the cost is quite high. It is time for HSBC to stop thinking that people are stupid, and HSBC’s respect for US regulators is past due.
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