HSBC pre-tax profits down 23.9% to US$7,079 million

Group Chairman Stephen Green says the decrease is part due to the reversal of fair value accounting gains on the bank's own debt.

HSBC, however, reports underlying pre-tax profits rose 56 percent to US$13.3 billion, after excluding the goodwill impairment in North America in 2008.

Compared with 2008, net interest income fell 4.3 percent to US$40,730 million while total operating expenses, excluding goodwill impairment, dropped 10.7 percent to US$34,395 million.

148.1 percent of the results came from HSBC's Global Banking and Markets, at US$10,481 million, while Commercial Banking made up 60.4 percent of the results at US$4,275 million.