The Hong Kong/London-listed group said profits dropped at its private banking unit, while the firm as a whole had been "resilient" in the face of recent difficult market conditions in Asia.

Pre-tax profits at the global private banking arm of HSBC, the London/Hong Kong-listed group, fell to $81 million in the three months to end-September from $190 million a year before, it announced today.

For the nine months to the end of September, the pre-tax profit figure was $261 million, down from $554 million in the same period for 2014, the bank said in a statement.

The cost/efficiency ratio of the bank was 84.7 per cent at the end of September, up from 71.6 per cent a year earlier.

The banking group has been consolidating its booking centres, cutting risk-weighted assets and costs to boost overall profitability; the group, which has strong ties to the Asia region, has felt some of the chill of the recent sharp sell-off to Chinese equities.

The private bank’s net operating income before loan impairment charges stood at $1.685 billion in the nine months to end-September, down from $1.820 billion, it said.

Client assets were a total of $346 billion at the end of September, down from $370 billion at the end of June this year. HSBC said it logged £3 billion in net new money in the latest quarter of this year.

HSBC said its global private banking arm saw a reduction in revenues – affected by a managed reduction in client assets. This was partly offset by a rise in revenue in Hong Kong in the first six months of this year from a rise in transaction volumes that reflected strong market performance.

“We continued to grow the parts of the business that fit our target model, attracting $12 billion in net new money since the end of 2014, mainly in Hong Kong, the UK and the US,” it said.

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The bank said its overall performance was “resilient” against a backdrop of challenging market conditions in Asia, and particularly China. During the period covered by the Q3 results, Chinese markets slid dramatically.

Across the whole of HSBC’s business lines, it logged reported profit before tax of $6.097 billion, a year-on-year rise of 32 per cent, reflecting favourable movements in “significant items”, the bank said. However, adjusted profit before tax in Q3 fell 14 per cent to $5.512 billion.

For the first nine months of the year, profits before tax, on a reported basis, were up 16 per cent at $19.725 billion; on an adjusted basis, PBT fell 3 per cent at $18.514 billion, HSBC said.

HSBC said it had a “strong capital base” at the end of September, with a CET1 capital ratio – a key measure of a firm’s capital strength – of 11.8 per cent, up from 11.6 at the end of June this year. This improvement stemmed from continued capital generation and a cut in risk-weighted assets.

“Our targeted initiatives reduced risk-weighted assets by an additional $32 billion, bringing the total reduction to $82 billion since the start of the year. This means we are already nearly 30 per cent of the way towards our targeted reduction of $290 billion by the end of 2017. We remain focused on reducing our risk-weighted assets quickly and efficiently,” the bank said.

“Our cost-reduction measures are beginning to have an impact on our cost base. There is more to achieve on costs and we expect the measures we have already taken to have a further impact in the fourth quarter,” it added.