HSBC Holdings posted higher first-half profit today despite a big rise in bad debts linked to its problems in the US housing market.
HSBC, which blamed bad US mortgage loans for its first ever profit warning earlier this year, said pretax profit rose 13 per cent to $14.16 billion
in the six months to June 30th, boosted by strong growth in Hong Kong, the Asia-Pacific and its investment banking arm.
Europe's biggest bank said it benefited from a gain of $1 billion from the dilution of a holding in its mainland China associates and that pretax profit was up 5 per cent excluding that gain.
It also said its charge for bad debts was $6.35 billion in the first half of the year, up 63 per cent from $3.89 billion in the same period last year.
HSBC sounded upbeat about the global economy. "The world economy remains remarkably buoyant. There is growing evidence of economic decoupling, with US weakness not constraining economic activity elsewhere," it said.
Earlier this morning, shares in the London-based bank were up 2.5 per cent at 902.5 pence, outperforming a flat performance from the FTSE-100 index and valuing the business at about £106 billion.