Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 27 October 2026
source“HSBC slashes UK growth forecasts on eve of Budget as bumper profits spark fresh calls for windfall tax”
R5/ 10
Selective
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates Daily Mail Money's claim that HSBC "slashes" UK growth forecasts while "bumper profits spark… calls for windfall tax" a 5/10 because the 32% profit jump was partly a base effect from last year's one-off legal charges, and no "windfall tax" is actually on the table, just a hike to an existing bank surcharge.
The Verdict
Selective. The GDP cut and profit figure are both real, but the headline reaches for the most dramatic verb and the most politically loaded tax label available, while the article body itself never mentions a "windfall tax" at all, only a surcharge rise from 3% to 8%. The 32% profit headline also omits the one-off accounting reason behind most of the jump.
What actually happened
HSBC cut its UK GDP growth forecast and reported a sharp rise in third-quarter profit, prompting renewed union pressure on the Chancellor to raise bank taxes ahead of the Budget. Both events happened the same day and both are accurately described in isolation; the question is how they're packaged.
Key facts
- HSBC cut its UK GDP growth forecast from 1.4% to 1.1%, saying the outlook had "deteriorated."
- Group pre-tax profit rose 32% year-on-year to $9.6 billion in Q3, but this was compared with $7.3 billion in the same period a year earlier, and the increase partly reflected "the absence of $1.4 billion in legal provisions recorded in the same period last year", a detail the Mail's headline doesn't flag.
- Revenue rose 5% to $18.6 billion but missed analyst estimates of about $19 billion, and shares fell on the result.
- UK-specific profit (the part actually exposed to any UK surcharge) was $1.8 billion for the quarter and $5.2 billion for nine months, up just 8% year-on-year, roughly a fifth of HSBC's $29.2 billion group total.
- What's actually proposed is a rise in the existing bank surcharge from 3% to 8% (TUC wants 16%), not a new "windfall tax"; the term appears nowhere in HSBC's results or the article's reported quotes.
What to watch for
- Watch whether Wednesday's Budget confirms the surcharge rise, and at what level, since HSBC's own analysts say it's less exposed than Lloyds or NatWest given its UK profit share.
- Watch for next quarter's comparison: once the 2025 legal-provision base effect rolls off, the headline "32% surge" framing won't be repeatable.
- Watch how UK Finance's competitiveness argument (46.5% effective UK bank tax rate versus 39.1% in Frankfurt and 27.9% in New York) features, or doesn't, in follow-up coverage.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
