HSBC posted a higher first-half profit, despite a big rise in bad debts linked to its problems in the US housing market.
The bank, which blamed bad US mortgage loans for its first ever profit warning earlier this year, said pre-tax profit rose 13% to $14.16 billion in the first six months of the year, boosted by strong growth in Hong Kong, the Asia-Pacific and its investment banking arm.
That was ahead of an average analyst forecast of $13.27 billion.
It also said its charge for bad debts was $6.35 billion in the first half of the year, up 63% from $3.89 billion in the same period last year.
'We think that the true underlying growth may be some way short of the headline growth,' said NCB analyst Simon Willis, keeping a 'reduce' rating on HSBC shares.
He added the bad debt charge was about $1 billion higher than he had expected.
