Unscathed Bank of East Asia to kick off earnings season

Bank of East Asia (BEA) launches the reporting season for banks in Hong Kong on Tuesday, and the city’s biggest locally-owned bank has arguably had a better year than some of its bigger peers.

Analysts say the bank is likely to report a solid profit rise of about 20 per cent, which compares favourably to the results of some big US and European names, who are still paying the price for missteps during the subprime and euro zone crises.

BEA has also avoided falling foul of regulators, and only hit the headlines recently because of renewed speculation that Guoco Group, its second largest shareholder might be planning to increase its stake.

In the past year, some of the world’s best known names have come under scrutiny over the setting of Libor, a key benchmark, with Barclays fined US$453 million in June for manipulating Libor, and UBS hit with a US$1.5 billion bill in December.

Earlier this month, RBS was fined US$612 million to settle US and UK regulatory charges of misconduct, manipulation, attempted manipulation and false reporting of yen, Swiss franc and dollar-denominated Libor.

Even HSBC Holdings and Standard Chartered had to take their medicine, although not for Libor tampering.

In December, HSBC agreed to pay US$1.92 billion to settle US probes of money laundering in the largest such accord ever, while Standard Chartered Bank agreed to pay US$327 million in fines after regulators alleged it violated US sanctions with Iran.