HSBC - Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Company

stars_bright

I have recently opened an ISA with HSBC but have only just realised what the HSBC stands for. Now I am worried that, if something were to go wrong with HSBC, with it being a foreign bank, would my money be as safe as it would be if is was in a UK bank? Also, I have money saved in a First Difrect bank accountm which is part of HSBC, so would that not be as safe either?

talana

Point 1 - nothing is going to go wrong with HSBC!
Point 2 - it is a UK bank in this respect, so nothing to worry about.

I used to live in Hong Kong back in the 80s and have fond memories (nostalgia almost :rolleyes:) for the old Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation before they bought out Midland Bank in the UK.

dunstonh

with it being a foreign bank

OK, have I missed something?

would my money be as safe as it would be if is was in a UK bank?

At close of business today it was a UK bank. HSBC is one of the safest UK banks. Even if it wasnt, it has the same FSCS protection that the rest of the publicly owned UK retail banks have.

Cranston_2

HSBC has a very strong balance sheet and is IMO a very very safe bank to deposit money with.

Compare the share charts for the UK banks over the last year. You will see that HSBC shares have faired much better then any of the other banks. That's a signal from the market place confirming the quality of HSBC business.

Jonbvn

LOL!

HSBC is the 3rd biggest bank in the world with a market cap of about US$170bn with operations in numerous countries. If they go bust, then the only value money will have will be for lighting fires!

Scousebird_2

Let me just fill you in on something to help you sleep tonight.

1) HSBC does not stand for anything anymore-it is a brand name in it's own right and de-merged from Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp a few years ago-HSBC means letters as a brand and nothing to be associated.

2) HSBC is in over 82 different countries across the world, and in each country they have bought at least one major bank locally, to introduce themselves into the local market place (thus the slogan 'The world's local bank')-do you think if they fell in one country they would be worried-if HSBC went under then the world markets would crash with it!!

3) HSBC is the biggest company in the world and has thousands of employees working from one end of the globe to the other, and therefore is now the world's biggest bank in terms of liquidty and worth.

Therefore your money is completely safe!

Ian_W

Scousebird wrote:

Therefore your money is completely safe!

Nothing in this world is COMPLETELY safe. However, on a scale of 1 to 10 [with 10 being the safest] HSBC are probably 9.99999999999999999999 [and maybe then some] safe!
However, if HSBC did go t1ts-up forget the FSCS - as johnbvn says so eloquently:

the only value money will have will be for lighting fires!

Speculator

Yes, as others have said, HSBC is a very safe UK bank.

Jonbvn

Scousebird wrote: »

HSBC is the biggest company in the world....

Sorry to be pedantic, but HSBC is far from the largest company in the world by any measure. However, it is still huge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue

onlyjustme

Jonbvn wrote: »

Sorry to be pedantic, but HSBC is far from the largest company in the world by any measure. However, it is still huge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue

Have a look at this though..... would appear that perhaps they are the biggest company in the world, I think it is all about how the measure it though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsbc

Aegis

HSBC were top of the Forbes list for world's largest companies a few months ago, but I believe that was based on a composite score across a number of possible measures of size, meaning that some companies would be bigger if you took just the total value of held assets, for example.