page_title: HSBC
section_title: 2000 to 2010
hierarchical_section_title: HSBC / History / 2000 to 2010
caption_attribution_description: English: Facade of HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building, and others. 中文: 香港滙豐總行大廈
context_page_description: HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational investment bank and financial services holding company. It was the 6th largest bank in the world by 2020, and the largest in Europe, with total assets of US$2.715 trillion. HSBC traces its origin to a hong in British Hong Kong and its present form was established in London by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to act as a new group holding company in 1991; its name derives from that company's initials. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation opened branches in Shanghai in 1865 and was first formally incorporated in 1866.
  HSBC has around 3,900 offices in 65 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, and around 38 million customers. As of 2014, it was the world's sixth-largest public company, according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.
  HSBC is organised within four business groups: Commercial Banking, Global Banking and Markets, Retail Banking and Wealth Management, and Global Private Banking. In 2020, the bank announced that it would consolidate its Retail Banking & Wealth Management arm with Global Private Banking, to form Wealth & Personal Banking.
context_section_description: Expansion into Continental Europe took place in April 2000 with the acquisition of Crédit Commercial de France, a large French bank for £6.6 billion. In July 2001 HSBC bought Demirbank, an insolvent Turkish bank. In July 2002, Arthur Andersen announced that HSBC USA, Inc., through a new subsidiary, Wealth and Tax Advisory Services USA Inc. (WTAS), would purchase a portion of Andersen's tax practice. The new HSBC Private Client Services Group would serve the wealth and tax advisory needs of high-net-worth individuals. Then in August 2002 HSBC acquired Grupo Financiero Bital, SA de CV, Mexico's third largest retail bank for $1.1 billion.
  In November 2002, HSBC expanded further in the United States. Under the chairmanship of John Bond, it spent £9 billion (US$15.5 billion) to acquire Household Finance Corporation (HFC), a US credit card issuer and subprime lender. In a 2003 cover story, The Banker noted "when banking historians look back, they may conclude that [it] was the deal of the first decade of the 21st century". Under the new name of HSBC Finance, the division was the second largest subprime lender in the United States.
  The new headquarters of HSBC Holdings at 8 Canada Square, London officially opened in April 2003.
  In September 2003 HSBC bought Polski Kredyt Bank SA of Poland for $7.8 million. In June 2004 HSBC expanded into China buying 19.9% of the Bank of Communications of Shanghai. In the United Kingdom HSBC acquired Marks & Spencer Retail Financial Services Holdings Ltd for £763 million in December 2004. Acquisitions in 2005 included Metris Inc, a US credit card issuer for $1.6 billion in August and 70.1% of Dar es Salaam Investment Bank of Iraq in October. In April 2006, HSBC bought the 90 branches in Argentina of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro for $155 million. In December 2007 HSBC acquired the Chinese Bank in Taiwan. In May 2008, HSBC acquired IL&FS Investment, an Indian retail broking firm.
  In 2005, Bloomberg Markets magazine accused HSBC of money laundering for drug dealers and state sponsors of terrorism. Then-CEO Stephen Green said that "This was a singular and wholly irresponsible attack on the bank's international compliance procedures", but subsequent investigation indicated that it was accurate and proved that the bank was involved in money laundering for the Sinaloa Cartel and throughout Mexico. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer characterised HSBC compliance during this period as "stunning failures of oversight and worse. The record of dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years was astonishing."
  In 2007, HSBC wrote down its holdings of subprime-related mortgage securities by $10.5 billion, becoming the first major bank to report its losses due to the unfolding subprime mortgage crisis.
  According to Bloomberg, "HSBC is one of world's strongest banks by some measures". When HM Treasury required all UK banks to increase their capital in October 2007, the group transferred £750 million to London within hours, and announced that it had just lent £4 billion to other UK banks.
  In March 2009, HSBC announced that it would shut down the branch network of its HSBC Finance arm in the United States, leading to nearly 6,000 job losses and leaving only the credit card business to continue operating. Chairman Stephen Green stated, "HSBC has a reputation for telling it as it is. With the benefit of hindsight, this is an acquisition we wish we had not undertaken." According to analyst Colin Morton, "the takeover was an absolute disaster".
  In March 2009, it announced that it had made US$9.3 billion of profit in 2008 and announced a £12.5 billion (US$17.7 billion; HK$138 billion) rights issue to enable it to buy other banks that were struggling to survive. However, uncertainty over the rights issue's implications for institutional investors caused volatility in the Hong Kong stock market: on 9 March 2009 HSBC's share price fell 24.14%, with 12 million shares sold in the last few seconds of trading.
caption: The HSBC Main Building in Hong Kong, which was designed by Norman Foster and completed in 1985
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