The bosses of HSBC have admitted they were shamed and humbled by the tax avoidance activities of the group’s Swiss banking arm as the bank revealed its chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, received £7.6m in pay and bonuses last year. Gulliver, speaking for the first time since the Guardian and other news outlets published a series of revelations about HSBC’s Swiss operations, offered his “sincerest apologies” but was defiant about the account he had with the bank in Geneva which sheltered millions of pounds in a Swiss account through a Panamanian company. The 55-year-old who became chief executive in 2011, was born ... (full story)