HSBC was able to hog the banking limelight today as Lloyds yet again failed to come up with the details of its deal with the Government to guarantee its toxic loans.

That makes it all the more noticeable that HSBC has not turned to the Government or to foreign sovereign wealth funds for today's record fundraising.

“Well-capitalised, liquid and profitable,” was chairman Stephen Green's brief version of why his bank is so much better than the rest.

But Green and his co-directors have had to eat humble pie. Most of them have taken pay cuts today, and the dividend will be reduced. That partly explains today's share-price crash, with the rest of the damage coming from the cautious outlook statement.

The knee-jerk reaction could be wrong. The bank sees chances to pick up decent businesses from rivals who have been more damaged by the credit crunch.

HSBC has a tradition of picking up cheap assets. It was little-known in the UK until it bought a 15% stake in Midland Bank for £345 million in the stock-market collapse of 1987. It secured the rest for less than £4 billion in 1992 when Britain was entering its last major recession.