SBC Bank Australia chief executive Stuart Davis said the bank's latest results, a 96 per cent increase in pre-tax profit for the June half, was the "fulfillment" of changes it put in place a couple of years ago. In 2006 the local operation divested a number of businesses that did not fit in with what HSBC considered its global strengths. Out went online share broking, margin lending, broker-originated mortgage sales and retail funds management.It launched an upmarket retail offering, Premier, for its mass affluent target market, won a number of store finance contracts using systems developed by a US subsidiary HSBC Finance Corp, and placed renewed emphasis on its wholesale banking, trade and financial markets services.Yesterday HSBC Bank Australia reported a pre-tax profit of $US100 million for the six months to June. Loans were up 29 per cent to $US12.6 billion and deposits were up 34 per cent to $US13.8 billionThe global banking and markets division was the big contributor. Its $US47 million contribution to pre-tax earnings was up 194 per cent on the June half in 2007. Davis said: "We had strong growth in payments and cash management and we re-priced for risk in global banking. We had no major delinquencies and we had a net write-back in our commercial book."On the markets side our treasury had a poor first half last year when there was a lack of volatility. In the latest half the volatility was good for trading and sales."The thing to note about HSBC is that we were positioned for volatility. We were long liabilities and we were very careful about our positions. "And having made changes to the business in 2006 we had no margin calls to margin calls to manage, no shrinking margins on broker-originated mortgages."The contribution from commercial banking was up 112 per cent to $US34 million. The disappointment was contribution from personal financial services - down 21 per cent to $US15 millionThe residential mortgage book grew from $US4.1 billion last June to $US4.8 billion. Other personal credit grew from $US846 a year ago to $US1.1 billion.The Sheet's reading of the APRA numbers suggests that all of HSBC deposit growth was on the commercial side, with a slight fall in retail deposits. Davis rejected this, saying the bank grew retail deposits.Davis said the Premier account had doubled customer numbers. "Australia is a fast growing market for Premier. The service is now operating in 40 countries and we have a jump on the market for a global transaction and investment account."By the end of this year HSBC is due to start issuing a Woolworths branded general purpose credit card. Stuart said the project was going well but did not offer any details. He said a strategic focus in the year ahead would be to capitalise on the group's strength by acquiring new commercial and corporate relationships. "We are looking for long term relationships. The reintermediation process is going on as companies that used to fund through the capital markets are coming back to talk