HSBC reports first-quarter pre-tax profit of $9.4 billion (£6.96 billion), down from $9.5 billion (£7.0 billion) a year earlier, and it misses analysts’ expectations. Multiple outlets attribute the shortfall to higher-than-expected credit losses and an increase in bad-debt provisions. The Financial Times and Macau News link part of the deterioration to fraud-related credit charges in the United Kingdom, referring to a UK fraud case, alongside broader pressures from rising geopolitical risks. CNBC and the other reports characterize the decline as reflecting wider-than-expected credit losses, despite “solid performance” in the bank’s core businesses. Overall, the earnings results show that costs tied to credit risk outweigh strength elsewhere in the group during the quarter. The reporting remains consistent across sources on the profit figure, the year-on-year decline, and the reason for the miss: larger credit provisions and related losses than analysts had forecast.