HSBC issues apology over tax-avoidance activities
HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver said sorry to MPs yesterday for unacceptable practices at the Swiss subsidiary.
The chief executive told the Treasury Committee it damaged “trust and confidence”.
Chairman Andrew Tyrie told him and chairman Douglas Flint that revelations about tax-avoidance activities linked to the Geneva branch in the mid-2000s were “extraordinary”.
Mr Gulliver said: “I can understand how people find these arrangements kind of unusual.
"I myself grew up in Plymouth, I went to a state school.
"So I can understand why the public would find them unfamiliar and rather strange.”