Getting Set for the Future of Banking

The Hong Kong (SAR) economy returned to growth in 2023 after all pandemic measures were removed, enabling the city to truly get back to business. At the same time, Hong Kong was impacted by factors including the slower than anticipated economic recovery in the Chinese Mainland, higher interest rates globally and geopolitical tensions.

Despite the uncertain external environment, the banking sector saw moderate growth in its overall balance sheet during the year. As we forecast in last year’s Banking Report, the higher interest rate environment continued to benefit banks’ profitability, with licenced banks seeing a significant overall rise in operating profit in 2023. As interest rates are expected to remain relatively high and decrease gradually in the next year or so, banks will continue to benefit from higher profits.

However, the higher interest rate environment means that some banking customers may struggle to service their outstanding loans. The muted global economic outlook and the ongoing issues in the Chinese Mainland real estate market will also weigh on banks and some of their customers. Banks should therefore be vigilant in the year ahead about managing credit risk in their loan portfolios.

For banks with more exposure to capital markets, we anticipate that a shift to a lower interest rate environment will provide supporting tailwinds. Capital market activities, equity risk premiums, businesses leveraged to cost of funding as well as the inevitable cash risk premium ‘opportunity cost’ are additional factors that will impact each bank differently as the interest rate cycle shifts.

In the ‘Financial results’ section below, we have shared the results in a tabular format. You can use the drop-down menus to select and compare the results of different banks across the various metrics, and also compare the results from 2022 and 2023. All of the results are also available in the traditional format in the pdf version of the report, which you can read and download from the link at the bottom of this web page.

The theme for this year’s Banking Report focuses on the future for the sector. There have been significant advances in technology recently, notably the emergence of GenAI. There has been a lot of noise in the market about GenAI, and we look at how banks can best make use of this development while protecting their customers from potential risks. Another key note on GenAI is that while it is the trending topic in 2024, it will likely take some time before its full potential is realised. The reality of a bank’s data readiness coupled with still fairly murky business cases that have a clear ROI, as well as the need to fully understand the potential risks engrained in GenAI use -- particularly where there is direct client impact -- means that true adoption and productivity gains from GenAI will likely be a story of 2025 and beyond.

Risk transformation is a major theme at present as banks come under more regulatory scrutiny while needing to constantly adapt to technology advances and the evolving business environment. Also tied in with broader digital transformation is cost optimisation, and we consider how banks can operate more efficiently and find new areas of growth as well as cut down on costs. Meanwhile, the impact of climate change is affecting banks and many of their customers, and we review the latest developments in ESG and climate risk.

In this year’s report we also take a look at some of the hot topics for the sector, including the latest financial crime trends, credit risk development and operational resilience, as well as developments in regulatory reporting and central bank digital currencies.

We hope you enjoy the insights and information in this report. Please feel free to get in touch with us if you would like to discuss the financial results or the broader outlook for the Hong Kong banking industry.