The concept for banking giant HSBC dates back to Hong Kong shortly after the First Opium War, where the goal was to fulfil the needs of British merchants trading in the region. After raising what at the time was an absolutely astonishing amount – at HK$ 5mn – The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation began operations in 1865.
Rapid expansion soon followed, with new branches opening in Bangkok, Manila and Shanghai in the early 1920s. The company’s first branch outside Asia was opened in 1955 in California, USA.
Today, HSBC Holdings plc is the largest bank in Europe by total assets, with over USD 10tn in assets under custody. It serves 40 million customers across 64 offices in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America.
On the back of a long history of financial innovation, HSBC recently brought a new game-changing solution to market. In 2022, HSBC Trade Solutions launched to offer a one-stop e-platform for safe, secure, and flexible management of global transactions of guarantees, trade loans for sellers and buyers, import bills and import documentary credit.
HSBC Trade Solutions will make trade faster, safer and more straightforward. The platform drastically reduces document exchange time and provides real-time status tracking, so traders can focus on growing their businesses and capturing more opportunities. Such is the platform’s influence that it is set to form the foundation of HSBC’s industry-leading trading services portfolio, which currently supports over USD 800bn worth of transactions every year.
In all, HSBC Holdings plc reported revenues of USD 51.7bn in 2022, ranking it among the largest companies in the world.
