The Swiss private banking arm of HSBC Holdings Plc is not for sale, its head said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday. Asked whether HSBC wanted to sell its Swiss business, Franco Morra, chief executive of HSBC Private Bank (Switzerland), told Swiss newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft: "The Swiss business of HSBC is not for sale."
He said the bank was growing. "We're concentrating on customers in 29 markets who invest at least 5 million Swiss francs with us," he said. HSBC said in June it was selling $12.5 billion of private banking assets in Switzerland to Liechtenstein's biggest bank LGT Group Foundation but was committed to Switzerland as an international centre for its global private banking business.
HSBC's Swiss arm is currently subject of several tax investigations, including in the United States, France and Belgium. Morra said he was hopeful these issues would be solved quickly. "We have good reasons for that, particularly in the United States," he said, adding the bank was co-operating closely with authorities in the hope of solving the issue in the near future. Last month, HSBC Holdings was fined $12.5 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission resolve charges that its Swiss private banking business illegally offered services to US clients without being properly registered.
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