Buried in HSBC’s third-quarter update was an announcement that the bank had sold its US vehicle loan servicing business, along with $1bn of loans, to Santander, for $904m. In spite of warm words of encouraging trends in consumer loan losses, and tentative plans to hand out more credit cards, this is the reality: the bank can’t get out of North America fast enough.

Dispatching the chief executive to Hong Kong was part of a narrative that began this year, when the bank expressed regret for the 2003 purchase of Household, the acme of subprime, and put two-thirds of its portfolio in run-off.