HSBC Australia's newly appointed chief executive Paulo Maia said he was happy with the progress of the bank's credit card joint venture with Woolworths, dismissing reports that it has been a disappointment.Maia, who moved from his post as deputy CEO of HSBC in Brazil to take up his new position last month, said: "It is in line with our expectations."The talk in the credit card industry is that take-up of the card has been poor. The responsibility appears to lie with Woolworths, which is handling distribution through its retail outlets but has not done a good enough job training frontline staff to sell the product.Sources compare the poor take-up of the Woolworths card with the much stronger acceptance of the David Jones American Express, which is also being distributed in-store.Maia said: "The credit card business in Australia is relatively new. Woolworths is a small part of it but it is an important relationship and it is developing well."HSBC has 350,000 cards on issue though its own direct sales and through partnerships with Woolworths and other retailers.Maia has used a series of interviews over the past couple of days to talk about HSBC's intention to grasp the opportunity to become the leading international bank in Australia, particularly in areas such as trade and supply chain finance, payments and cash management, business finance and market operations.That opportunity arises because other international banks have scaled back their Australian activities or withdrawn altogether, while HSBC has come through the global financial crisis in pretty good shape.Yet the latest figures, for the June half, show that the bank is yet to seize the day. Net loans and advances fell from $13.17 billion a year ago to $13.06 billion at June 30.Within that overall figure, commercial and trade finance (an area the bank is targeting for growth) fell from $4.6 to $4.2 billion over the same period.Customer accounts fell from $14.4 billion to $11.8 billion.Maia said: "We picked up some market share in home loans (up 12.3 per cent to $5.7 billion). On credit cards we were very selective."With business customers it was a combination of demand drying up after September last year and reluctance, in some cases, on our part."We have been very cautious and we still are. But we are building our balance sheet again and we see an opportunity for an expanded role."In business banking we are a relationship bank with a complementary set of skills to the big local banks."The one standout area for the bank was its global banking and markets division, which reported record results for the June half. Profit before tax was up from $52 million a year ago to $85 million.Foreign exchange, interest rate and credit hedging and structured derivatives operations all contributed, along with a very strong showing in debt capital markets. HSBC was the number one issuer of public domestic bonds and the number two issuer of Australian international bonds.It was the sole bookrunner and joint lead manager on Commonwealth Bank's Thai baht transaction, the first