HSBC has announced its results and reinstated dividend payments, perking up its share price as well as its shareholders.
The results showed that the bank continued to derive a big chunk of its income from the global banking and markets segment.
Hong Kong is still the lender's most profitable market in the world, and is expected to remain so for the foreseeable future, even if 2020 revenue has dipped.
Group chief executive Noel Quinn did not comment directly on earlier reports of Asia-Pacific chief executive Peter Wong Tung-shun looking for a successor.
But he heaped praise on Wong's performance, noting that he had made tremendous contributions to the bank in difficult times last year.
Looking at the storms that have battered the local political and economic environment in the past couple of years, one can see what Quinn said of Wong weren't just polite words.
Dubbed by some as the "Tony Leung Chiu-wai of the banking sector," Wong is physically robust and looks to be in his prime.
You can't really tell that he is, in fact, turning 70 this year.
A banking source told me a member of Wong's immediate family is nearly 100 years old, and Wong just might share the genes for good health.
This means that if he so wishes, he could continue to serve the bank in a senior role with his rich Asia and Hong Kong market experience, even as he is training his successor, the source added with a chuckle.
Siu Sai-wo is publisher of Sing Tao Daily
