HSBC Is a Global Bank With the Largest Operations in Hong Kong and the UK

HSBC has evolved from a global bank, where two decades ago half of its capital was deployed outside the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, to a somewhat more geographically focused group centered mainly on these two markets, with a few other strong geographies such as the Middle East. After the 2008 global financial crisis, stricter regulations both globally (the Basel III framework) and specifically in the UK have made it more difficult to generate excess normalized returns from a global footprint, in our view, as regulators in each jurisdiction demand that significant capital be allocated locally, to protect local depositors and the governments that insure them.