HSBC's Asian Growth Opportunities to Mitigate Margin Pressure

HSBC has evolved from a global bank into a more geographically focused group centered mainly on Asia and the UK, with a few other strong regions such as the Middle East. After the 2008 global financial crisis, stricter regulations globally (the Basel III framework) and specifically in the UK have made it more difficult to generate excess normalized returns from a global footprint, in our view, as regulators in each jurisdiction demand that significant capital be allocated locally, to protect local depositors and the governments that insure them.