October newsletter
Our 3Q results
We’re returning more capital to you, our shareholders – we approved a third interim dividend of $0.10 per share as part of this week’s 3Q 2025 results update.
Our results – announced on Tuesday – show that our four businesses – Hong Kong, UK, Corporate and Institutional Banking, and International Wealth and Premier Banking – sustained momentum in their earnings.
For the quarter ended 30 September 2025, profit before tax was $7.3bn and revenue was $17.8bn.
In 3Q25, we incurred $1.4bn of legal provisions related to historical matters*. These are included within notable items and do not impact our ongoing business.
Annualised return on average tangible equity (RoTE) for the first nine months of 2025 was 13.9%. Excluding notable items, it was 17.6% – a 0.9 percentage point rise compared with 9M24.
“We are becoming a simple, more agile, focused bank, built on our core strengths. The intent with which we are executing our strategy is reflected in our performance this quarter, despite taking legal provisions related to historical matters,” said Georges Elhedery, our Group CEO.
“The positive progress we are making gives us confidence in our ability to upgrade our targets and we now expect 2025 RoTE excluding notable items to be mid-teens, or better.
“We remain fully focused on helping our customers navigate new economic realities, putting their changing needs at the heart of everything we do.”
*Higher revenue was more than offset by an increase in operating expenses, mainly from notable items in 3Q25. This includes legal provisions of $1.4bn on historical matters, comprising $1.1bn in connection with developments in a claim in Luxembourg relating to the Madoff securities fraud, and $0.3bn relating to certain historical trading activities in HSBC Bank plc.
Find out more about our performance in our 3Q 2025 quick read.
HSBC proposes to privatise Hang Seng Bank
We’ve put forward a conditional proposal to privatise Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Bank.
We’re the controlling shareholder of Hang Seng, with a shareholding of approximately 63%, and are proposing to privatise Hang Seng by what is known as a scheme of arrangement.
If approved, Hang Seng will become a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Asia Pacific and will be delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The proposal is in line with our strategy to increase leadership and market share in areas where we have clear competitive advantages and the greatest opportunities to grow and support our clients.
We aim to grow in Hong Kong by strengthening the banking presence of HSBC Asia Pacific and Hang Seng, focusing on their relative strengths and competitive advantages, while allowing all customers to choose where to bank.
‘An exciting opportunity’
“Our offer is an exciting opportunity to grow both Hang Seng and HSBC. We will preserve Hang Seng’s brand, heritage, distinct customer proposition and a branch network, while investing to unlock new strengths in products, services, and technology to deliver more choice and innovation for customers,” said Georges Elhedery, our Group CEO.
“Our offer also represents a significant investment into Hong Kong’s economy, underscoring our confidence in this market and commitment to its future as a leading global financial centre, and as a super-connector between international markets and mainland China.
“This proposal fully meets our criteria for value-accretive investments: it aligns with our strategy, enhances growth and scale, does not distract us from organic growth, and delivers greater shareholder value than buybacks.
“Together, HSBC and Hang Seng form a well-positioned platform with two iconic banking brands working side by side to deliver lasting value for customers, employees, and shareholders.”
The HK$106 billion privatisation offer values 100% of Hang Seng at HK$290 billion on an equity value basis. The proposal includes an offer of HK$155 for each Scheme Share, representing a 33% premium over the undisturbed 30-days’ average closing price of HK$116.5 per share.
The proposal will become effective subject to the satisfaction of conditions, including Hang Seng shareholder approvals, and sanction by the High Court in Hong Kong.
Read more in our announcement (opens in new window).
Strengthening our presence in India
It’s been another busy month for HSBC in India as we continue to bring our expertise and services closer to our customers.
We not only launched HSBC Innovation Banking and our enhanced Premier offering in the market, we were also recognised as the top bank in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) for the support we provide.
HSBC Innovation Banking
The launch of HSBC Innovation Banking(opens in new window) (opens in new window) expands our support for the Indian technology and venture ecosystem.
To coincide with the launch, we’ve allocated US$1 billion in non-dilutive debt capital for Indian start-ups.
This funding will help early to late-stage growth companies scale their operations without diluting equity, enabling founders and investors to retain greater control over their businesses.
“By expanding Innovation Banking into India, we’re signalling our intent to support entrepreneurial ambition globally,” said David Sabow, our Global Head of Innovation Banking.
Ajay Sharma, our Head of Banking in India, added: “With the launch in India, we’re deepening our commitment to the vibrant start-up ecosystem, where we have a proven track record of partnering with clients on their growth journeys.”
Premier in the spotlight
Just one day before HSBC Innovation Banking opened for business in India, we launched our enhanced Premier offering(opens in new window) (opens in new window) to meet the growing wealth, health, travel and international needs of affluent customers in the market.
Bollywood icon Kareena Kapoor Khan stars in the campaign launching the service.
“HSBC Premier is more than just a bank account – it’s a trusted partner that supports our customers at every stage of their journey,” says Sandeep Batra, our Head of International Wealth and Premier Banking in India.
“With an expansive array of offerings, we’re strategically positioned to help our customers grow, protect, and preserve their wealth for generations.”
GIFT City award
And, if that’s not enough, we recently won the Bank of the Year award at the GIFT International Banking Forum, in GIFT City.
GIFT City, which opened in 2021, is India’s first global financial and IT services hub – and we were the first international bank to be licensed to operate there.
Earlier this year, we opened a new, expanded office(opens in new window) (opens in new window) in the district.
A world-first in quantum algo trading
HSBC x IBM - Quantum Algo Trading
Duration: 3:37
Speakers:
- Philip Intallura
Group Head of Quantum Technologies, Emerging Technology, Innovation and Ventures, HSBC
LinkedIn (opens in new window) - Josh Freeland
Global Head of Algo Credit Trading, HSBC
LinkedIn (opens in new window) - Dr Jay Gambetta
Vice President, IBM Quantum
LinkedIn (opens in new window)
[Text on screen]
HSBC has announced the world’s first-known empirical evidence of the potential value of current quantum computers for solving real-world problems in algorithmic bond trading.
[Philip]
We believe that quantum technology is going to have a very significant impact
on the financial services industry.
It’s a very exciting time within this field because we’re at this point of discovery.
We’re trying to forge a path that there is no blueprint for.
[Text on screen]
Quantum Algo Trading
A World-First
[Dr Gambetta]
The partnership with HSBC has been about how can we use quantum computing to look at problems in the financial space.
[Dr Proissl]
Quantum computers are starting to become useful tools to explore modelling of financial markets, and in particular, in the quantitative investment space.
[Philip]
Algorithmic trading refers to using computer programmes to automatically execute trades, usually with predefined rules, market data and certain strategies.
And this is done with almost no human interaction.
[Josh]
We’re able to work on a problem that we actually have in real-world trading.
So, this is something that we do thousands of times a day already and that’s estimating the likelihood of winning a trade.
[Dr Proissl]
The business problem concerns the optimisation of trade orders of corporate bonds and how likely they would be executed.
And the estimation of that likelihood is unfortunately exposed to significant errors.
[Philip]
What we’ve demonstrated here is the ability to do something with a quantum computer in a hybrid workflow that we just cannot replicate using classical computing alone.
What we’ve effectively shown here is up to 34% improvement in predicting whether an order will be fulfilled.
We aren’t able to compare to that number using classical-only methods.
And what that ultimately means is increased margins and greater liquidity.
This is the single most important achievement of the HSBC quantum programme to date
[Text on screen]
Thomas J Watson IBM Research Center
Yorktown Heights, NY
[Dr Gambetta]
Working with HSBC, I think is one of the best examples of us putting science and
practice together.
Algorithm trading actually uses a lot of advanced computation to do the problem.
And what they’re doing is a big optimisation problem, and what the team has done
is injected into this optimisation a quantum algorithm that looks for patterns.
And since we know that quantum is better at finding certain types of patterns or structure, this is a good candidate of exploring quantum computing for industry applications.
[Dr Proissl]
We got together a global and interdisciplinary team of experts from HSBC and IBM that really brought together a unique set of skills from quantitative finance, trading, data science and AI to quantum algorithms and hardware.
The exciting part about this collaboration, and in particular this project, was to directly work
with the algorithmic traders that work with these models every day and know their limitations.
They really understand the problem at the heart and this inspired also the way how we would approach going in from a quantum perspective.
[Josh]
At one point there were 16 physicists and AI machine learning researchers working around the clock trying to achieve the same thing that the quantum computer did.
[Dr Gambetta]
This achievement is important because it’s the first example of using quantum on real industry data.
As our systems get bigger, faster and more performant, and as we start to discover more algorithms, we are only going to see more and more of these examples.
[Philip]
This is the beginning but it is also our most tangible demonstration of just how close we are from extracting value, from quantum computing.
[Text on screen]
HSBC | Opening up a world of opportunity
© HSBC Group 2026
We’ve partnered with IBM to achieve a world-first in bond trading by using quantum computing.
In trials, by applying quantum capabilities to algorithmic trading (or algo trading), we delivered improvements of up to 34 per cent in predicting how likely a trade would be filled at a quoted price, when compared with using common classical computing techniques.
“This is a genuinely exciting world-first in bond trading,” says Philip Intallura, our Group Head of Quantum Technologies.
“It means we now have a tangible example of how today’s quantum computers could solve a real-world business problem at scale and offer a competitive edge, which will only continue to grow as quantum computers advance.”
Algo trading in the corporate bond market uses algorithms to automatically price customer inquiries, considering market conditions and risk factors.
It makes automated predictions on whether a trade will complete and at what price, but these predictions – made using classical computing methods – are not always accurate.
When we applied quantum computing in our trials, it significantly improved the accuracy of the predictions, increasing profit margins and liquidity.
Watch our film at the top of the story to learn more – in it, Philip describes the trial as “the single most-important achievement of the HSBC quantum programme to date”.
You can also read more about how we’re at the forefront of developing new quantum capabilities.