HSBC Holdings plc (Chinese: 滙豐; acronym from its founding member The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business links to East Asia and a multinational footprint. It is the largest Europe-based bank by total assets, ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.919 trillion as of December 2023. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 trillion in assets under custody (AUC) and $4.9 trillion in assets under administration (AUA).
HSBC traces its origin to a hong trading house in British Hong Kong. The bank was established in 1865 in Hong Kong and opened branches in Shanghai in the same year. It was first formally incorporated in 1866. In 1991, the present parent legal entity, HSBC Holdings plc, was established in London and the historic Hong-Kong-based bank from whose initials the group took its name became that entity's fully-owned subsidiary. The next year (1992), HSBC took over Midland Bank and thus became one of the largest domestic banks in the United Kingdom.
HSBC has offices, branches and subsidiaries in 62 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, serving around 39 million customers. As of 2023, it was ranked no. 20 in the world in the Forbes rankings of large companies ranked by sales, profits, assets, and market value. HSBC has a dual primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Hang Seng Index and the FTSE 100 Index. It has secondary listings on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Bermuda Stock Exchange.
HSBC has been implicated in a number of controversies and the bank has been repeatedly fined for money laundering (sometimes in relation to major criminal organizations such as the Sinaloa cartel) or setting up large scale tax avoidance schemes.
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