HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan today said he would not be bullied by Government into immediately passing interest rate cuts on to mortgage customers.

He said: "I have just flown in from the United States today so I have no idea whether there has been any sort of pressure but I doubt we would react if there were any. We run this business for the benefit of our shareholders and customers."

He pointed out that customers on tracker mortgages had the benefits of rate cuts immediately, and that they and people on fixed-rate mortgages make up 97% of the bank's mortgage customers. A mere 14,000 are on unchanged standard variable rates.

Geoghegan added: "Libor hasn't come down to anything like the level it needs to in order to pass on the full benefits of the rate cut."

HSBC, with Barclays, turned down the offer of a Government bailout. Europe's biggest bank today said third-quarter profits rose despite it taking almost another $5 billion (£3.2 billion) of writedowns on its US mortgage and credit-card businesses and further credit-crunch losses in investment banking.

Chairman Stephen Green said: "Although we have not been immune from the effects of the severe deleveraging of the financial system, we have been able to reinforce and grow some of our most important franchises as other banks have weakened." The bank today said profits for the first nine months of the year were lower than in 2007 but added that the decline at this stage was less than it had been at the half-year when they fell 28%.

The largest writedown today was $4.3 billion in its US personal financial services division, driven by the still-weakening housing market and rising unemployment.

In investment banking, HSBC followed rivals in shifting $13 billion of toxic assets within its balance sheet under new accounting rules to avoid quite such bad losses. Instead of taking a $1.4 billion hit, it took only $600 million.

The bank as also hit for $4.8 billion on the valuation of its asset-backed securities.