HSBC and Standard Chartered bank bosses to give bonuses to charity

HSBC and Standard Chartered banks’ chief executives have pledged to give their bonuses, totalling about £6m, to charity.

Michael Geoghegan, boss of HSBC, and Peter Sands, the head of Standard Chartered, are both set to accept their bonuses, expected to be about £2m and £4m respectively, but then donate them to charities that they choose, the Financial Times (FT) has reported.

Geoghegan is set to give his 2009 bonus to a charity supporting South African schools, Education Africa. His wife is chairman of its UK board of trustees.

Sands will donate his bonus to a charitable trust for education and conservation schemes.

Neither bank received any government bailout money during the financial crisis and Standard Chartered has no UK operations, according to the Times.

HSBC has reported a 24% fall in annual profits to $7.1bn (£4.7bn) in 2009.

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Analysts expect Sandard Chartered to report an underlying profit of about $5bn, up 20%, on Wednesday, the FT said.

Last month the chief executives of Barclays, Lloyds and RBS declined their annual bonuses.