HSBC sells Maltese card acquiring unit

Global banking titan HSBC is to offload its Maltese card acquiring business for €11.075m.

HSBC Bank Malta will sell the said unit to HSBC Merchant Services, a subsidiary of Global Payments Inc, as part of group's strategic decisions set out earlier this year.

HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver outlined in May that after "screening" its operations through five filters - future economic potential, relevance to connectivity, profitability, efficiency and liquidity - it will "continue to invest in markets with strategic relevance and high actual or potential returns and will either turn around or dispose of other businesses."

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Gulliver gave details of a cost savings programme totalling $2.5-3.5bn in an attempt to reach the cost efficiency ratio target of 48-52%.

"This is not about shrinking the business but about creating capacity to re-invest in growth markets and to provide a buffer against regulatory and inflationary headwinds," he said in May.

BC