Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"HSBC Holdings plc is a British[7] multinational investment bank and financial services holding company. It was the 7th largest bank in the world by 2018, and the largest in Europe, with total assets of US$2.558 trillion (as of December 2018). HSBC traces its origin to a hong in 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.[8][9] The origins of the bank lie mainly in Hong Kong and to a lesser extent in Shanghai, where branches were first opened in 1865.[1] The HSBC name is derived from the initials of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.[10] The company was first formally incorporated in 1866.[11]
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.[12] As of 2014, it was the world's sixth-largest public company, according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine." [Wikipedia]