HSBC Mulls Merging Commercial, Investment Bank to Cut Costs (1)

HSBC Holdings Plc is weighing combining its commercial and investment bank divisions as part of new Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery’s push to eliminate overlapping roles across the company and shed expenses.

The effort would bring together HSBC’s global banking and markets business, which caters to large, multinational corporations and houses the firm’s trading and investment banking divisions, with its commercial banking arm, according to people familiar with the matter.

The combined division would become the bank’s largest revenue generator, contributing about $40 billion a year to HSBC’s coffers and leapfrogging its wealth and personal banking business. It ...