Reeling from press reports about his personal financial maneuvers, HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver offered a few plain words of explanation. He may have revealed more than he intended. His remarks show the bank is even more deeply flawed than the headlines suggest.
Trying to downplay your culpability after a settlement with regulators is a very bad idea. Just ask Sir John Peace, chairman of Standard Chartered, the UK bank. His public shaming is a useful lesson for which financial firms everywhere should be grateful.
Remember Ed Breen? No? He took over a well known company after it was rocked by scandal, pilloried by Congressmen and editorial writers and later had its senior executives sent to jail. He adopted a radical strategy and engineered a brilliant turnaround. It’s a lesson for banks today.