The boss of HSBC has said that “UK growth needs strong banks” after saying its profits soared by nearly a quarter this year and amid calls for the Government to raise taxes on bank earnings.HSBC recorded a pre-tax profit of 19.5 billion US dollars (£14.5 billion) for the first six months of the year.This was 23% higher than the same period a year ago, and above the 18.9 billion US dollars (£14.1 billion) that most analysts had been forecasting.It rounds off a bumper reporting season for the UK’s high street banks, joining Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest in recording higher profits year on year and beating analysts’ expectations.This has helped fuel renewed questions about whether the Government could choose to target banks to help raise extra revenue.The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said the four banks generating a combined £29 billion in first-half profits meant there was a “mountain of evidence” to suggest banks could afford to pay more tax.The union is calling for the Government to increase the corporation tax surcharge on banks, from the current rate of 3% to at least 8%, which it said would raise £9 billion over four years.A branch of HSBC (Alamy/PA)In response to questions about the potential for tax hikes, HSBC’s group chief executive Georges Elhedery said: “This is a matter for the Government, but let me tell you how we’re thinking about this.“First, we’re very, very encouraged by the Government’s ambition to support and enable growth in the UK, which of course we have a major role to play here.“Second, for growth to be able to manifest, you need businesses to be confident and invest.“For businesses to invest, you need them to have access to financing and we, as the banking sector with a strong balance sheet and strong capital position, are the preferred financing mechanism for these businesses.“So the UK growth requires strong banks.”HSBC said in its half-year financial results that it intended to launch a new share buyback of up to one billion US dollars (£740 million).Meanwhile, the group’s operating expenses went up over the first half as a result of plans to invest further in technology, and the impact of inflation.But this was partly mitigated by cost-cutting under chief executive Mr Elhedery’s drive to simplify the group, which has stripped out some 1.5 billion US dollars (£1.12 billion) worth of costs ahead of schedule.Profit growth was driven by higher net interest income and increased fee income, particularly from its wealth management and banking services, according to the bank.The rise was partly offset by higher expected credit losses which totalled 2.4 billion US dollars (£1.79 billion), including a 400 million dollar (£298 million) “fraud-related” exposure to a lender in the UK, and expected losses relating to geopolitical tensions and higher trade tariffs.But Mr Elhedery said that the UK economy has been “outstandingly resilient throughout all the challenges we’ve seen lately”, while acknowledging the impact of the Iran war “in some of the more fragile economies” around the world.“For the UK, what we’re watching is what this means in terms of inflation and the reaction of the Bank of England to inflation,” he said.“But we remain very confident in the resilience of our businesses in the UK.“We are absolutely standing ready to support any of them to continue investing for their growth ambition and, at this stage, we saw no indication that could tell us otherwise.”