Bloomberg HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA is appealing a HK$605 million ($78 million) fine imposed by Hong Kong’s securities regulator in connection with its sales of structured products including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.-related notes between 2003 and 2008. The appeal hearing began in the city on Wednesday after the Securities and Futures Commission previously alleged failures in internal controls …

  Paris / AFP France’s BNP Paribas has became the first European major bank to post a profit rise for the first quarter, delighting analysts and sending its shares sharply higher. Net profit grew by over 10 percent year-on-year to 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) for the first three months of the year, thanks to one-off gains but also to …

  New York / AFP Erste Group Bank AG, Austria’s biggest bank, beat analyst expectations for first-quarter profit as a sharp drop in bad debt provisions outweighed declining lending and fee revenue. Net income came in at 274.7 million euros ($316 million) in the three months through March compared with 226 million euros a year earlier, the Vienna-based bank said in …