HSBC seals the deal to sell 195 US branches
HSBC has completed its sale of 195 branches in upstate New York to First Niagara Bank in a deal first announced in July last year.
The move, which bagged the banking group $900m (£570m), is the latest completion in a string of transactions aiming to rid the bank of retail operations it sees as “subscale”.
HSBC has decided that its US retail bank fits into that category: the business boasts $14bn in customer deposits but only $2.2bn in loans and $4bn in brokerage and insurance assets under management.
That makes it too small to fit into the bank’s new plan, which is to focus mostly on its corporate customers and to only operate high street banks where it can become big enough to be worth the time and money.
HSBC said last week that it has brought in $5.9bn by selling businesses in the last year, including its US credit cards business.
It has also sold assets in Europe, including Poland, Georgia and Slovakia.