The FTSE 100 has six bank stocks offering investors passive income today. These are HSBC (LSE:HSBA), Lloyds, Barclays (LSE:BARC), NatWest, Standard Chartered, and Georgian lender Lion Finance.

All six of these bank shares are well off their 52-week intraday highs. As a result, their dividend yields are higher.

But which is offering the largest potential passive income stream? Let’s find out.

Mixed results

As mentioned, all of these stocks have pulled back sharply from their respective highs this year.

The biggest sliders are Barclays and HSBC, both of which have recently reported Q3 earnings that fell short of market expectations. Standard Chartered, Lloyds and NatWest report over the next three days, respectively, before Lion next week.

On Thursday (22 October), Barclays said quarterly pre-tax profit came in at £2.32bn, short of market estimates for £2.42bn. Management blamed a “challenging environment” for its Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities (FICC) business. FICC income slumped 19% during the quarter, and was 5% lower for the year after nine months.

This offset strong performance in Barclays’ UK Corporate Bank division, which provides lending and services to companies with annual turnover above £6.5m. The return on tangible equity (RoTE) here was 21.6%, as pre-tax profit rose 22% to £879m.

Management also announced plans to cut 5,000 jobs by the end of the year, with AI replacing some of those roles. While it’s always sad to hear of job losses, it’s becoming clear that all banks are going to lower operating cost structures through AI.

Turning to HSBC, it reported today that Q3 underlying revenue increased 4.8% to $18.6bn. Again, that was slightly shy of expectations, as was pre-tax profit of $9.6bn (+32%).

Investors also didn’t appear to like that full-year guidance was held despite aggressive cost-cutting actions. As I write, HSBC stock is down 6.7%.

What about income?

As for dividends, some of these bank shares now look attractive. Their forward-looking yields range from 3.5% to NatWest’s 6.3%.

Again, HSBC stands out to me (for the record, I own its shares). We’ve got a prospective 5.4% yield and the Asia-focused lender just announced a new $1bn share buyback programme. Annualised RoTE for the first nine months of 2026 was a solid 18.8%.

As we simplify HSBC, we are creating greater capacity to invest, grow and deliver strong returns for our shareholders.

CEO Georges Elhedery.

Barclays also looks attractive, with a 4.2% forecast yield. It’s also the cheapest of the banks, with a price-to-book ratio of 0.8 and a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 7. For Lloyds, those figures are 1.5 and 8.8, respectively.

Of course, a bank tax is widely expected at tomorrow’s Budget. And while this would disproportionately impact domestic lenders NatWest and Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays would also feel some pain. There’s a risk the tax could be higher than feared.

Which is my favourite?

Longer term, my favourite FTSE 100 bank stock is HSBC due to the wealth management opportunity across Asia. It looks even more attractive after today’s near-7% drop, making it one to consider.

But right now, Barclays looks particularly undervalued to me, with the decent dividend yield adding weight to the investment case. So that’s another one to dig into while the banking sector is out of favour.

Should you invest £5,000 in Barclays Plc right now?

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And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Barclays Plc made the list?

Ben McPoland owns shares of HSBC.