The US subprime lending woes that roiled global markets earlier this year were far from over, said Sandy Flockhart, HSBC Asia Pacific chief and global head of commercial banking.
'We have seen lots of banks coming up with their third-quarter results with impairment charges,' said Mr Flockhart. 'It's too early and premature to say the issue is completely behind the market.'
Citigroup, which last week revealed US$6.5 billion of debt-trading and loan losses, yesterday said third-quarter profit fell 57 per cent.
Shares of HSBC yesterday rose 1.93 per cent to a record high of HK$152.80, as investors bet the bank's US operations would not be affected by the subprime troubles.
'Generally speaking, for a bank like HSBC with high liquidity and strong capital, when markets get tough the share price does quite well,' Mr Flockhart said.
HSBC's commercial banking business delivered a compound annual growth rate of 21 per cent in pre-tax profit from 2004 to this year.