HSBC’s chief executive has said it was the ability of traders at the bank who were routinely able to spy on the bank accounts of fellow employees that forced him to set up a secret offshore stash for his bonuses from the lender.
Stuart Gulliver said that a glitch in the computer system of HSBC’s Hong Kong business in the 1990s meant “everybody had access to everybody’s” bank accounts, meaning that employees could easily see how much their colleagues were being paid.
Defending his use of a Panamanian bank account, Mr Gulliver, 55, said many senior staff at the bank had resorted to setting up accounts outside of Hong Kong to hide their pay, adding that in several of the years in question he had