Europe’s biggest bank published results showing a 17% fall in profits to $18.7bn (£12.2bn) as the investment banking arm slumped and $1.2bn of fines and other conduct issues hit the bottom line.The bosses of HSBC have admitted they were shamed and humbled by the tax avoidance activities of the group’s Swiss banking arm as the bank revealed its chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, received £7.6m in pay and bonuses last year. Gulliver, speaking for the first time since news outlets published a series of revelations about HSBC’s Swiss operations, offered his “sincerest apologies” but was defiant about the account he had with the bank in Genevawhich sheltered millions of pounds in a Swiss account through a Panamanian company. The 55-year-old who became chief executive in 2011, was born in Britain but is tax domiciled in Hong Kong, where the bank has majoroperations.He admitted the bank was shamed by the events at its Swiss bank and hit out at the idea he should know what every one of the firm’s 257,000 employees were doing. He asserted that the bank was being held to a higher standard of account than the church and armed forces. HSBC revealed that 1,178 of its top staff were paid at least €1m (£738,000) last year – it was 330 under a different measure the previous year – and Flint said it would be inappropriate for Gulliver’s pay to be docked to reflect the Swiss bank revelations. His £7.6m compares with £8m in 2013 and had been cut by £500,000 last year because of fines for foreign exchange rigging and other regulatory matters.
