Who is HSBC?

[questions]

Who is HSBC? I have heard they are the Bank of Hong Kong, now owned by China. Is that true?

[sweeps]

They were originally based in Hong Kong but are now headquartered in London. About HSBC

[mrvirgo]

I read somewhere that HSBC was started by a Scotsman. It definately is not owned or run by the Chinese government although there are branchs there and in all of Asia.

[carsensejoe]

hsbc

Its head office is located in the HSBC Tower in London's Canary Wharf. The group is named after its founding member, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, a bank established by Thomas Sutherland, a Scot, to finance British trade in the Far East in 1865.

The bank is the second largest corporation in the world in terms of assets[1] (as of Dec 31, $1.861 trillion, while Citigroup reported $1.884 trillion).[2] It reports its results in United States dollars, since 80% of its earnings originate from outside the United Kingdom. Nearly 22% of its earnings are from operations in Hong Kong, where it was headquartered until 1991. It is the largest bank in Hong Kong, and at the end of 2005 was the largest banking group in the world by Tier 1 capital.[3]

The HSBC logo, known as the Hexagon, is derived from The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’s 19th century house flag, itself derived from the Scottish flag, which is the angular cross that Saint Andrew (the patron saint of Scotland) was crucified upon