Wealth income rose 18 per cent in the quarter from a year ago, HSBC said, and it singled out this part of the business as a strong contributor to the headline result. Shares were up late-morning in London.

The international wealth and premier banking arm of UK/Hong Kong-listed HSBC today reported a pre-tax profit in the first three months of 2026 at $1.188 billion, down a touch from $1.192 billion a year before. 

Revenue rose a touch, to $3.511 billion in the quarter; operating expenses were little changed in this division of the bank, it said in a statement. Banking net interest income fell 14 per cent year-on-year to $1.796 billion.

Fee and other income, however, rose 24 per cent on a year ago, to $1.819 billion; within that figure, wealth income was $1.659 billion, a rise of 18 per cent. 

Across the whole of HSBC, pre-tax profit fell year-on-year by $3.2 billion to $9.5 billion, mainly due to the non-recurrence of money made a year ago by HSBC’s sale of its Canadian and Argentinian business groups. 

The bank said the wealth business made a strong contribution to the overall result, as did its Hong Kong segment, and the debt and equity market parts of its corporate and institutional banking segment.

Shares in HSBC were up about 2.5 per cent in London morning trade (around 11 am on Tuesday).

“HSBC has kicked off the year with a bang, smashing past first-quarter expectations. A big part of that outperformance came from strong fee income in areas like currency trading and wealth management - two bright spots that helped support a solid showing from its more traditional banking operations," Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown, said. "The numbers are a bit noisy thanks to the sales of its Canadian and Argentinian businesses, which makes year-on-year comparisons a little tricky. But strip out the noise, and the underlying performance looks strong.

"For investors, this is exactly what they want to see: a core business holding up well just as the global outlook turns murky. HSBC’s global reach means it’s exposed if things get messy with ongoing trade tensions or a wider economic slowdown. In a bad scenario, management’s numbers suggest something like a 10 per cent hit to profits, and that’s before factoring in things like rate cuts," he concluded.

At the end of March, HSBC said its Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – a standard international measure of a bank’s capital buffer – was 14.7 per cent, down slightly from the end of 2024, caused mainly by a rise in risk-weighted assets, and partly offset by a rise in CET1 capital.