HSBC: It’s still not over!
View(s):Amidst serious charges of tampering accounts and hoodwinking the regulators, HSBC Sri Lanka is embroiled in a dispute with local staff which resulted in HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong probing allegations by workers. Investigators from HSBC headquarters had sent an LN (Lotus Note) which is an internal HSBC Group communication method to staff listing a telephone number to contact this international team to make an appointment and tell ‘their story’ at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, sources said. “The reason why they gave us specific time slots was because that way we won’t bump into each other,” a staff member who had met with the investigators told the Business Times. He said that some ex-HSBC staff who had been terminated also met up with the international team to share their issues.
This came about when HSBC Sri Lanka experienced its biggest blow to-date when some senior managers at HSBC Corporate Banking were sacked over charges that incentives-based performance figures were misrepresented with positions vacated as a result were filled with foreigners. Industry sources said that the Head of Human Resources was sent out of the bank through a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) due to many ‘findings’ at these meetings. The HSBC staff member said that the international team wrote down all details and assured that a process will be on to rectify what was done. “That process is now on. And we are hopeful.”