HSBC?

It just dawned on me last week I didn't really know what HSBC stood for... after all these years of its being one of the biggest banks around.

To quote Wikipedia:

HSBC Holdings plc (Chinese: 滙豐控股有限公司) is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom.^[3] As of 2010 it was the world's sixth-largest banking and financial services group and eighth-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.^[6][7] It has around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America and around 100 million customers.^[4][8] As of 30 June 2010 it had total assets of $2.418 trillion, of which roughly half were in Europe, a quarter in the Americas and a quarter in Asia.^[5]

HSBC Holdings plc was founded in London in 1991 by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to act as a new group holding company and to enable the acquisition of UK-based Midland Bank.^[1] The origins of the bank lie in Hong Kong and Shanghai, where branches were first opened in 1865.^[2] Today HSBC remains the largest bank in Hong Kong, and recent expansion in mainland China, where it is now the largest international bank, has returned it to that part of its roots.^[8][9]

HSBC is a universal bank and is organised within four business groups: Commercial Banking; Global Banking and Markets (investment banking); Personal Financial Services (retail banking); and Private Banking.^[10]