Three British bankers are facing an investigation for alleged money laundering at the Swiss branch of HSBC.
A judge has ordered an investigation into claims that seven senior bankers helped wealthy clients hide money from authorities.
These include top financiers who have moved on to other senior jobs in the City after leaving the bank.
Under investigation: Former HSBC Swiss unit chief executive Clive Bannister (left) and his successor Chris Meares (right)
It came as HSBC bosses unveiled a 19% drop in profits and announced they were hiring 1,800 more employees to tackle financial crime.
The bankers under investigation include 58-year-old Clive Bannister, who was chief executive of the lender’s Swiss unit in 2006.
He now heads Phoenix Group, a FTSE 250 company and one of Britain’s largest life insurers.
Married, father of three, Bannister lives in a £6.1m terraced house in London’s posh Notting Hill, and was paid £2.8m last year.
The scandal he is involved in came to light after former HSBC IT expert Hervé Falciani pulled files from the bank’s Swiss operation in 2008.
They contained the details of some 30,000 secret account holders and were seized by the French, then shared with other countries as part of a tax crackdown.
The details were made public in 2015, with clients revealed to include the super-rich, arms dealers, blood diamond smugglers and corrupt businessmen.
Yesterday the Spanish judge Jose de la Mata ruled that Bannister and his former colleagues should be investigated.
He did not order an investigation into HSBC itself.
He found evidence they worked with continental lenders Santander and BNP Paribas to transfer funds at least until 2008 so customers could avoid taxes in Spain.
Chris Meares, who headed the division in 2007, and its former chairman Peter Widmer are also under investigation.
HSBC yesterday announced profits of £3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2017, down 19% from the same period a year earlier.
Profits were mainly down on one-off accounting changes but beat analyst expectations, sending shares up 2.8%, or 18.6 pence, to 663.8 pence.
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