Is HSBC preparing to sell its British retail business?

HSBC has announced plans to axe between 7,000 and 8,000 jobs in the UK Credit: PA

HSBC made more than £12 billion last year but this morning the bank is setting out changes to improve performance and make the organisation leaner and more profitable.

Up to 25,000 jobs are to go across the bank's global business as it seeks savings of more than £3 billion a year worldwide.

HSBC employs 48,000 staff in the UK, and up to 8,000 jobs will go here.One in six of HSBC's high street branches in its "top 7 markets" are set to close, although no specific figure has been given for the UK, where it has around 1,000 branches.

HSBC profits:

HSBC's UK retail banking business will be ring-fenced (separated and protected from the rest of the business as required by the regulators) and renamed as it moves to Birmingham.

The rebranding is being presented as a move to ensure customers aren't confused but it also rather suggests that HSBC is limbering up to offload the UK bank at some point.

"It's too soon to say whether we'll keep it or not" conceded the chief executive, Stuart Gulliver.

HSBC is clear in its determination to "pivot East". Seventy-eight percent of its profit last year came from Asia, just 3% from Europe.

HSBC is clear in its determination to 'pivot East' Credit: Reuters

Asia is where the future growth and therefore "the action" is. The bank's priorities are shifting geographically, its headquarters may follow.

HSBC has been headquartered in London ever since it took over Midland Bank 24 years ago. In April HSBC announced it was carrying out a review of where it is headquartered.

This morning Gulliver said a decision would be made by the end of this year, and any move away from London would take two years complete.

He didn't provide us with a list of alternative locations, but the working assumption is that the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank is examining the merits of getting back to where it was born 300 years ago.

UK branches used to be known as Midland Bank before they were swallowed up by HSBC in 1992 Credit: PA

HSBC has set out the criteria against which the judgement will be made. It wants "the mind" of the bank to be located in a large economy with open, stable government and strong growth prospects, a fair tax system and access to talent.

The head-scratching continues, but given HSBC's Asia ambition and its focus on cost reduction, the direction of travel feels pretty clear.

If HSBC does go, the decision will undoubtedly be pinned politically to the government's Bank Levy. The tax raised £2.2 billion last year, HSBC paid one third of it and it's gone up again.

Bank Levy makes the case for a move more compelling but a decision to up sticks will have as much to do with the way in which the world and trade is changing.

HSBC is getting out of Brazil and Turkey but does business in more than 70 counties. The sun never sets on HSBC's empire but in recent years its horizons have looked too wide - from money laundering in Mexico to manipulation of foreign exchange rates in London, to tax evasion at its private bank in Switzerland - at times the group has looked too big to manage.

This morning has been an attempt to further centralise and simplify the way that HSBC is run. But the bank remains a "global" in a way RBS, Barclays and Lloyds simply aren't.

HSBC is headquartered in Britain, but it's not really very British.