HSBC seems to be suffering from the Citigroup effect. Once seen as an irresistable financial services powerhouse with tentacles across every geography, it is increasingly being viewed as unwieldy and accident-prone.

Until recently, the £100 billion bank’s woes appeared confined to the US, where meltdown in the US sub-prime mortgage market triggered February’s profits warning, the first in the bank's history. There, Michael Geoghegan, chief executive, acted swiftly and forced the departures of the territory’s two top lieutenants.

Attention has since moved to east. Last month, Michael Smith, the respected chief executive of Asia, abruptly quit to run ANZ in Australia and New Zealand. Now Steve Wallace, head of investment banking for the region, has gone too. In both cases, being passed over for promotion appears to have been the trigger. But at a time when HSBC is keen to refocus attention from its US misadventures to its strengths in the Far East - where its roots lie, and which accounts for 40 per cent of profits - such losses can only be unhelpful.

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