SLOW BANKING EXPANSION
No easy ride for HSBC in China’s Pearl River Delta
London-Hong Kong — In the digital age, footfall in bricks-and-mortar outlets is an incomplete measure of business activity, but HSBC’s sparsely attended branches in the Pearl River Delta suggest it is not all plain sailing for the bank’s expansion in mainland China. HSBC, the world’s sixth-largest bank by assets, announced in 2015 that it would hire 4,000 new staff and invest billions to make the Pearl River Delta its gateway to China, a retail and corporate banking push that bet on a tech boom, infrastructure spending and a growing middle class. It is, as CEO Stuart Gulliver reminded shareholders in Hong Kong on Monday, a key plank of the bank’s global strategy to improve profits by focusing on markets with stronger economic growth. The Pearl River Delta already generates more than 10% of China’s GDP and a quarter of its exports. On the ground, HSBC still has a mountain to climb. In a rundown mall in Houjie, a factory town in the urban sprawl of Dongguan, the HSBC branch stands out...
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