In April, HSBC said it would be looking into moving its headquarters out of the UK following "regulatory and structural reforms" since the financial crisis.
The Sunday Times reported that the government U-turns, including changes to the bank levy, mean HSBC is "more likely to keep its headquarters in London", according to insiders.
Speaking at the bank's Annual General Meeting in April, Chairman Douglas Flint said:
"We... have to take fully into account the repositioning of our industry being driven by the regulatory and structural reforms which have been put in place post crisis. As I said at our informal meeting in Hong Kong on Monday, we are beginning to see the final shape of regulation and of structural reform, including the requirement to ring fence in the UK. As part of the broader strategic review taking place, the Board has therefore now asked management to commence work to look at where the best place is for HSBC to be headquartered in this new environment. The question is a complex one and it is too soon to say how long this will take or what the conclusion will be; but the work is underway.
"As the regulatory reform programme reaches its final stages we will continue to champion the benefits of shaping the new regulatory system to underpin the financial activities that support global trade and investment flows and job creation."
Last week, the government announced changes to the Senior Managers, and Certification Regime, including reversing the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ rule for banking bosses.
The burden of proving misconduct will now fall on the regulators, superceding the ‘reverse burden of proof’ which currently exist, requiring bankers to prove they were unaware of any wrongdoing.
New government laws also require the UK's five largest high street banks to separate their retail subsidiaries from 2019 in order to protect consumers from risky activity.
HSBC announced in September that the name of its UK ring-fenced bank will be HSBC UK, which will be rolled out across the UK from 1 January 2018, one year before ring-fencing legislation comes into effect.
In a statement, HSBC said that following a consultation process with retail, private and commercial banking customers, as well as customer-facing staff, a decision has been made to keep the HSBC brand, adding ‘UK’ to distinguish the ring-fenced bank from the non-ring-fenced bank.
Stuart Gulliver, Group CEO, said:
“As outlined at our Investor Update in June, setting up the UK ring-fenced bank in Birmingham is a key strategic action for the Group. Our ambition is to be the bank of choice in the UK and as a name, HSBC UK will build on the global connectivity and customer trust of the HSBC brand and differentiate us in a competitive market.”
