Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, put his finger on it when under scrutiny by the Treasury Select Committee last week: “I don’t feel that proximate to what was happening in the private bank (at Geneva)”. He felt ‘very ashamed’, but not enough to forfeit past bonus payments in response.
He was finance director when HSBC took over the Swiss bank subsidiary but tried to wash his hands of any responsibility by blaming the scandal of the local managers in Geneva. He argued that secrecy surrounding Swiss banking made it hard to have a direct line of sight of what was happening at the bank. So what is the point of having board directors in London supposedly governing the whole HSBC enterprise if they can’t prevent, have no knowledge of, major corruption at a foreign subsidiary? Even when the horrors of what went on at the Swiss bank are fully pointed out, he makes no apology about his own failings, but merely passes the buck. Continue reading