HSBC Considers Merging Commercial and Investment Bank

HSBC is weighing combining its commercial and investment bank divisions as part of new Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery’s push to eliminate overlapping roles across the company and shed expenses. The effort would bring together HSBC’s global banking and markets business, which caters to large, multinational corporations and houses the firm’s trading and investment banking divisions, with its commercial banking arm. The combined division would become the bank’s largest revenue generator, dropping about $40 billion a year into HSBC’s coffers and leapfrogging its wealth and personal banking business. It would also bring together a more than 90,000-person strong workforce, though some executives believe the tie-up could allow the bank to eliminate some employees.

Deflation that’s been stalking China since last year is showing signs of spiraling, which threatens to worsen the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy while raising calls for immediate policy action. Data released Monday confirmed that, apart from food costs, consumer price growth barely registered in large swathes of the Chinese economy at a time when incomes are sagging.