HSBC CEO Gulliver ties Swiss tax scandal to another era

HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver told UK lawmakers that the scandal over the role of the Swiss private banking unit played in helping clients dodge taxes was the product of a different era.

"The practices that we've seen taking place at the Swiss private bank, which we absolutely do not support in any way, shape, or form, were in the period in the mid-2000's," Gulliver said in testimony to the Treasury Select Committee in London yesterday.

"We are now de-risking the firm," he said. Gulliver, 55, was called before lawmakers after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released details from client data stolen in 2008, showing how HSBC set up Swiss bank accounts for drug cartels, arms dealers and others, and advised its customers on how to evade tax.

"Screening was much more passive than it's required to be today," Chairman Douglas Flint told lawmakers at the hearing. "It's also the case that rules have changed."

Responsibility rests with the managers in Switzerland and the relationship managers who served these clients, said Flint, who was finance director at HSBC at the time.

"We were all let down, and the most culpable people are the relationship managers who did what they did," Flint said.