HSBC India’s profits rose 11% led by corporate and institutional companies

Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd (HSBC), Europe’s largest bank by assets, reported an 11% increase in pre-tax profit from India in 2025, driven by the solid performance of its corporate and institutional banking business, the bank’s largest division in India serving large and small corporate clients.Pre-tax profit rose to $1.86 billion in 2025 from $1.68 billion a year ago, with corporate and institutional banking accounting for $1.50 billion of profit, up 14% year-on-year from the $1.32 billion the division earned a year earlier. The corporate center division, which provides global support services to the bank, was the second largest profit contributor with pre-tax profits of $266 million, down 1% from $269 million in 2024.

India was the third most profitable market for HSBC, after Hong Kong ($13.02 billion) and Britain ($5.52 billion), mainly as profits in mainland China fell 66% to $1.08 billion from $3.22 billion in 2024.

India remained HSBC’s largest employee base with 47,000 employees out of a total workforce of 2.09 lakh full-time employees, far more than the 33,000 the bank had in Britain and mainland China.

In its annual report, the bank said about 50% of multinational companies are served by HSBC in India, where it launched the HSBC Innovation Banking platform and committed a $1 billion funding pool to fund startups in the country.

Globally, the bank reported a decline in annual profits, but results still exceeded analyst expectations. The bank posted pre-tax profits of $29.91 billion for 2025, down 7% from the $32.31 billion reported in 2024, but still ahead of expectations of $28.86 billion.

Group CEO Georges Elhedery said the bank has strong momentum and is therefore increasing its return on average tangible equity (RoTE) target to 17% in each year from 2026 to 2028. “We are also targeting year-on-year revenue growth over the same period on the same basis, rising to 5% in 2028. We are becoming a simpler, more agile, focused bank, a bank that moves at the speed our customers need to navigate the modern world,” says Elhedery. said. The bank had achieved a RoTE of 13.3% at the end of 2025. Chairman Brendan Nelson said the bank expects the global economy to grow in 2026 because despite significant policy uncertainty, global trade will also grow, supported by the expansion of new trade corridors and huge demand for AI hardware.

“Robust consumption and rising exports drove impressive growth in a number of markets, especially in ASEAN, and this combination is expected to continue into 2026. In India, domestic demand is likely to be the main driver of growth, driven by robust consumption and continued government investment in infrastructure,” Nelson said.