US-China rivalry hinders a struggling HSBC

Analysts hope HSBC will announce a more radical strategy shift when the bank posts half-year results on Monday. Executives at a bank caught between an irascible Chinese public and quarrelsome US politicians, might simply wish for better days ahead.

HSBC has suffered an absolutely torrid few months. As it gears up to announce what are likely to be a rocky set of interim results at 5am London time (12 noon Hong Kong) on Monday August 3, it’s worth pausing to sum up the level of the trouble it’s in – and why its future is not all bleak.

HSBC’s problems come in three forms: financial, structural and reputational.

Let’s start with the first of them. Covid will hit and hurt all banks, be it now or later.

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