HSBC's miserable results will make it hard for Noel Quinn to upgrade his ‘interim CEO’ tag

Quinn wants to ‘remodel’ the bank, but the poor performance of the business will increase the pressure on chairman Mark Tucker to go for an external hire to fix problems, says Jim Moore

The rain’s falling at the bank after a miserable set of results (AFP/Getty)

HSBC looked like an Olympic archer stepping up to shoot having first consumed two bottles of neat Scotch when presenting its third-quarter results: it missed the target with just about every shot.

If there were numbers among the reams of them analysts have to produce that the bank managed to hit it was probably more through luck than judgment.

Poor Noel Quinn. The straight-talking Brummie, who was installed as interim CEO following the ousting of John Flint, could be what this most pompous of institutions needs.