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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 37.111.200.92 (talk) at 11:02, 31 May 2022 (→3rd country LC open condition: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Nationality of the company

There seems to be a lot of confusion over whether this is a British company, a British–Hong Kong company or a multinational company. Views welcome so that we can clear this up. Dormskirk (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the two citations attached to the first sentence of the lede back up the idea that it is a British-Hong Kong company. It has strong connections with both Britain and Hong Kong, after all – as the article describes – and it has "Hongkong" in its name. Wildfowl (talk) 22:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support that it is a British-Hong Kong company for the reasons above. Dormskirk (talk) 22:33, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose: it's a British multinational company, just as the article said for a very long time before being changed relatively recently, a change that has been repeatedly challenged. The lead of the article should reflect the current status of the company, and there is no such thing as a current "British-Hong Kong" company, for the simple reason that Hong Kong ceased being British twenty years ago; what decides the nationality of a company is where it is legally registered, and headquartered, and multinational describes the company as operating in multiple countries, making HSBC a British multinational company. With "British Hong Kong" belonging in the history section of the article, and only there. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 11:39, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Compromise proposal. We are dealing with two different companies here, as the hatnote, the infobox and the third sentence of the lead explain. Wildfowl's good-faith citations in an earlier version seem to have missed that.
    • Footnote 6 is about the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, which is the subject of a different article. This was the company founded in Hong Kong in 1865 and the main corporate body until 1991. It is still a HK-registered company.
    • Footnote 5 is about HSBC Holdings plc. This British-registered company has been the main corporate body since 1991 (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited is now a wholly-owned subsidiary) and it does not have "Hong Kong" in its name. Legally, it's just as much a Hong Kong company as it is an American company or a Maltese company or any of the other places where it has subsidiaries.
This article is about the British-registered company, as the lead sentence makes clear: "HSBC Holdings PLC is a ... holding company". It would be factually incorrect to describe it as an HK holding company in that sentence.
Now obviously this company has strong roots, and does considerable business, in HK. When Michael Geoghegan was CEO, his office and tax domicile were both in HK; it's very unusual to have the CEO's office 8 timezones away from corporate HQ. But on the other hand, it's never been an ethnically Chinese business either. The controlling minds of the corporation are British. Geoghegan is British (as well as being a Hong Kong person), and AFAIK so has every one of the MDs and CEOs. Until 1991, HSBC wasn't just an HK business, it was a hong, a British firm that does most of its business in Asia, like Jardine Matheson and several others. JM is registered in Bermuda, but nobody regards it as a Bermudan business except as a legal fiction: it's a British business trading in Asia. So would the following text be acceptable to everyone?:
HSBC Holdings PLC is a British[1] multinational banking and financial services holding company; the business originated as a hong in Hong Kong.
  1. ^ "About HSBC".
We lose the reference to the HQ in London, but this is already in the infobox, and the Geoghegan case means that the HQ situation is less straightforward than any other bank I can think of anyway. We gain an earlier reference to HK. We keep factual accuracy about the holding company. Most of the lead paragraph is already given over to explaining HSBC's unique corporate history. Matt's talk 11:59, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi – Further to my previous comments, we need to acknowledge in this debate that in substance Hong Kong remains the main profit-generating hub (see Reuters). The activities of The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, which is registered in Hong Kong, continue to dominate the financial results of the business. So although technically the registered office may have moved to the UK, the centre of gravity of this business remains anchored in the far east and in Hong Kong in particular. Dormskirk (talk) 20:35, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You would need to explain why the geographic origin of profits is more significant to an encyclopedia than the geographic origin of assets, customer accounts (both balanced between UK and HK) or taxes paid (far more in the UK). And in fact, one of the reason that HK profits are so far ahead is that certain group-wide costs are attributed to the UK, obscuring the profitability of the UK operating subsidiary. I certainly agree that Asia is very important to the business, and Hong Kong uniquely so; the last sentence of the lead paragraph has made that clear for some time. But we can't modify "holding company" with anything other than "British". Some silly analogies that might appeal to you: the Special Operations Executive conducted most of its business in German-occupied Europe. So could we call it "a British-German military organization"?! Is the Brigade of Gurkhas "a British-Bruneian (or British-Nepali) unit"?! Of course not, because their 'controlling minds' were/are British. That's why the hong concept is so useful, though I am concerned that it's too technical for the first sentence. Please feel free to propose fresh wording for the whole sentence if you can find a way to work round the "holding company" difficulty. Matt's talk 22:21, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
All good points. I am afraid I don't necessarily have the answer but just feel that all the facts need to brought out. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 22:31, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
How about this: "HSBC Holdings PLC is a multinational banking and financial services holding company; the business originated as a hong in Hong Kong and, although it is registered in the United Kingdom, its main profit-generating activities remain in Hong Kong." Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 15:50, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
By the way Thomas.W has made some inaccurate and rather unconstructive comments on my talk page about my contribution(s) to the HSBC article on this topic. For the record this edit is the only edit I have made to this article on this topic. I have responded on his talk page. So perhaps we can now bring this matter to a close. Dormskirk (talk) 16:13, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, it's a "British multinational banking and financial services holding company, tracing its origin to a hong in Hong Kong". We don't list where other multinational holding companies make most of their profits, so there's no reason why we should do it for HSBC. The bolded, and very prominent, link to The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in the lead of the article provides readers with easy access to the Hong Kong part of their business, should they want more info. As for your post above, you're overdoing it a bit, even if you only reverted once; you had no valid reason for that revert, since the undiscussed change to "British-Hong Kong" had already been reverted twice, with explanations for why it was reverted. And your claim that you reverted it because "it is either British or multinational - it cannot be both" wasn't a valid reason for a revert, for obvious reasons: there are thousands of companies that are both <insert nationality here> and multinational. Or in other words, own ignorance is not a valid reason for reverting an edit (and since you obviously didn't know, "A multinational corporation or worldwide enterprise is a corporate organization that owns or controls production of goods or services in two or more countries other than their home country", as clearly stated at the beginning of the lead of Multinational corporation, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the nationality of the company). - Tom | Thomas.W talk 16:26, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi - In the interests of drawing this to a close I am reluctantly prepared to accept your drafting. As for your postings to my talk page, I will take it from this that you now accept that your comments on my talk page were inaccurate but that "I am overdoing it a bit" and that my "own ignorance" does not justify my edit. I may be ignorant with certain aspects of corporate law but I am familiar with WP:NPA. I think we all need to move on from this now. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 17:26, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Dormskirk, I get the sense that you feel you've been edit warred to exhaustion, which is rubbish. I hope you feel your input has at least improved the article a bit (mentioning Britain/London/England three times in the old first sentence was a bit daft for an organization with such a strong Asian presence). I'll implement the wording proposed by Thomas.W and I hope that you can find editing fun again very soon. :-) Matt's talk 18:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Much appreciated. Many thanks. Dormskirk (talk) 18:55, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

History Section

It looks like it has been edited with an insert referring to Marine Midland Bank (1980) between something which happened in 1866 and something in 1959 on the next paragraph. My view is that it makes for awkward comprehension considering the regular format is to do histories in chronological order. Therefore this bit needs to be re-written in the right order.2.97.33.125 (talk) 16:57, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - I have tweaked it a bit. Thanks, Dormskirk (talk) 19:37, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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Edit warring IP

An IP keeps changing the article to state that HSBC is Europe's largest bank despite the fact that the source cited (S&P Global) clearly states it is the second largest bank behind BNP. If the IP has information to support their claim that it the world's largest bank, they should produce it here rather than edit warring. In the meantime, I am tagging the article as "disputed". Dormskirk (talk) 19:58, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it may be possible to demonstrate that HSBC is the larger bank by total assets depending on the date and exchange rate selected but it needs a reliable published source to do that. The BNP Paribas accounts show total assets of €2.488 trillion for 2020; the HSBC accounts show total assets of US$2.984 trillion (i.e. €2.437 trillion at an average exchange rate of US$1 = €0.817). So, on my calculations, BNP Paribas is still the larger bank. Dormskirk (talk) 20:56, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see that the 2022 data from S&P now shows that HSBC is larger than BNP, albeit by a very tight margin. It may make sense to update the claim; at the same time, perhaps there is better wording available to reflect the fact that it is clearly very close. Any suggestions welcome. Pubcrawler2000 (talk) 17:38, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK with me, as long as it is properly sourced to the online S&P data. Dormskirk (talk) 17:43, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

3rd country LC open condition

3rd country LC open condition 37.111.200.92 (talk) 11:02, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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