HSBC

HSBC Holdings plc, known as HSBC, is a British multinational bank and financial services group headquartered at 8 Canada Square in London. It began in 1865 as a bank in Hong Kong to finance trade between Asia and the West. For 2025 it reported profit before tax of $29.9 billion and total assets of about $3.2 trillion.

History of HSBC

HSBC was founded by Thomas Sutherland, a young Scotsman working for a shipping firm in Hong Kong, who saw that merchants trading with China and Japan needed better local banking. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation raised HKD 5 million in capital, sold 20,000 shares quickly, and opened in Hong Kong on 3 March 1865 and in Shanghai a month later. Its first office was Wardley House at 1 Queen’s Road Central, which remains its Hong Kong headquarters. A London office opened in July 1865 to handle foreign exchange for clients in China and India.

The bank grew along trade routes. By 1875 it operated in seven countries, with branches in Yokohama, Calcutta, Saigon and Manila, and it financed exports such as tea and silk from China, cotton and jute from India and sugar from the Philippines. By 1900 it was active in 16 countries and territories, and its government finance business had arranged China’s first public loan in 1874. In 1923 it opened a new Shanghai office on the Bund, with a Venetian mosaic dome and its first pair of lions, nicknamed Stephen and Stitt after two senior managers.

War disrupted the business. In December 1941, after Japanese forces advanced on Hong Kong, the bank moved its head office to London, then moved it back to Hong Kong in 1946 to help rebuild the local economy. In the 1950s it closed most of its China network after the founding of the People’s Republic, and in 1972 it set up its own investment banking subsidiary, Wardley, in Hong Kong. In the postwar decades it acquired the Mercantile Bank and the British Bank of the Middle East in 1959, took a majority stake in Hang Seng Bank in 1965, and bought a controlling stake in the American bank Marine Midland in 1980, with full ownership in 1987.

In 1984 HSBC became the first foreign bank since 1949 to receive a banking licence in mainland China, for a branch in Shenzhen. In 1992 it bought Midland Bank in the United Kingdom, and to meet the conditions of the takeover it created HSBC Holdings plc in London as a parent company. In 1998 it adopted a single global brand with its red and white hexagon logo, derived from the bank’s original house flag.

Products and services of HSBC

Since 1 January 2025, the group has operated through four businesses. The Hong Kong business covers retail banking, wealth and commercial banking at HSBC Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank, and the UK business covers retail banking and wealth, including first direct and M&S Bank, along with UK commercial banking. Corporate and Institutional Banking, or CIB, combines commercial banking outside the UK and Hong Kong with global banking and markets, and it describes itself as a leader in cross-border transaction banking and capital markets. International Wealth and Premier Banking, or IWPB, includes Premier banking outside Hong Kong and the UK, the Private Bank, asset management and insurance.

Revenue by business in 2025 was $27.6 billion for CIB, $15.9 billion for Hong Kong, $14.5 billion for IWPB and $12.9 billion for the UK, based on segment revenue before Corporate Centre.

Corporate structure and operations of HSBC

HSBC’s ordinary shares trade in London, Hong Kong and Bermuda, and its American depositary shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange. At the end of 2025, its workforce equaled 209,000 full-time employees, down from 211,000 a year earlier, and its main centers of employment were India with about 47,000, the United Kingdom with 33,000, mainland China with 33,000, Hong Kong with 26,000 and Mexico with 16,000. It operates in 56 markets.

The balance sheet at the end of 2025 showed total assets of $3,233.0 billion, net loans and advances to customers of $988.4 billion and customer accounts of $1,786.8 billion. Total shareholders’ equity was $198.2 billion. The return on average tangible equity, a measure of profit relative to shareholder capital, was 13.3 percent, or 17.2 percent excluding notable items. HSBC announced a total dividend of $0.75 per share for 2025 and two share buy-backs worth a total of $6 billion.

Recent years have brought new regional centers. It opened new headquarters in Singapore in 2020, Malaysia in 2021 and the United States in 2024, and it has begun relocating its London premises. In China it formed HSBC Bank China in 2007, opened a Shanghai headquarters in Pudong in 2010, and in 2017 began operating HSBC Qianhai Securities, the first majority foreign-owned securities joint venture in mainland China.

Impact of HSBC

HSBC’s history is closely bound to trade finance, the lending that lets exporters and importers move goods before they are paid. Its presence in Hong Kong and China since the nineteenth century, together with its base in the United Kingdom, gives it a role in the flow of money between Asia and Europe. In 1967 it installed its first computer, an IBM 360, which let customers use any Hong Kong branch for the first time.

Large banks also interact with central banks, which set the rules and the cost of money that shape bank lending, and HSBC reports its results in the context of changes in interest rates and economic conditions in the markets where it operates.

Criticism and legal matters

Like other large international banks, HSBC is subject to litigation and regulatory matters in many jurisdictions, which it reports in the notes to its annual accounts. In its 2025 annual report, the audit committee noted that it reviewed management’s judgments on a legal provision following developments in a claim in Luxembourg relating to the fraud at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

The report describes this as an area of accounting judgment, and readers who want detail on any matter should consult the legal proceedings note in the Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue