By IANS,
London : Anglo-Asian banking giant HSBC Monday declared net profit of $6.76 billion (4.43 billion pounds) in its personal and commercial banking for the first six months of 2010.
It is an increase of 121 percent from the same period last year’s figures of $3.35 billion, a bank release said.
The bank expanded its mortgage lending to around eight percent with gross lending of more than five billion pounds.
Lending to small and medium enterprises rose by 35 percent with the bank supporting nearly 65,000 new business start-ups.
HSBC is the first of the major high street banks to announce its figures. The Lloyds banking group is expected to announce its figures Wednesday, while Barclays will do so Friday.
The half-yearly announcement of the lender’s profit comes at a time when banks are being criticised for failing to lend to small businesses.
British chancellor George Osborne has even warned banks that they need to increase lending before paying out big bonuses.
While HSBC remained largely unaffected by the recent recession and did not need a government bail-out, other major banks borrowed 200 billion pounds to tide over the financial crisis in 2008 which they must repay next year.
The government concern is that if these banks reduce lending to small businesses in order to make these repayments, they could affect the country’s private sector-led economic recovery just at the time when sharp public sector cuts will start to bite.