HSBC Announces Successful Pulling Up Of Ladder

The Square Mile's king of comedy

HSBC, the biggest bank in Europe, today kicked off what market analysts are predicting to be a bumper week of insufferable back-slapping in the banking sector, by boasting that they have succeeded in wringing a succulent £7bn out of their impoverished customers in the first six months of 2010.

“Ha ha, ha,” explained HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan, as the bank’s delighted shareholders barged their way to an enormous platinum trough filled with chocolate-coated krugerrands. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha.”

When asked how the hated banking industry might justify bare-faced profiteering chicanery – such as cynically countering the recent High Court decision to ban excessive charges for letters by levying monthly fees on overdrafts, maintaining huge interest rates on credit cards that bore absolutely no relation to the market figure, turning away mortgage seekers and refusing to lend so much as a bent penny to small businesses, then ruthlessly asset-stripping their carcasses when they called in the receivers - Mr Geoghegan ostentatiously pulled out a silk handkerchief, wiped away an imaginary tear and then replied: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

HSBC’s contemptuously happy shareholders echoed Mr Geoghegan’s sentiments with unabounded glee as they charged out of the meeting, rampaging through the city streets in search of the most expensive restaurants in London.