HSBC 2001 Annual Report Download - page 13

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In December 2001, HSBC agreed to acquire an
eight per cent equity stake in the Bank of Shanghai
for RMB518 million (approximately US$63 million)
in cash. The Bank of Shanghai was established in
mainland China in 1995. It had assets of RMB96,325
million (approximately US$11,639 million) as at 31
December 2000, 196 branches throughout Shanghai
and 4,500 staff. The bank serves a broad range of
customers and provides personal and corporate
banking services as well as payment, trade finance
and treasury services.
As each acquisition has been made, HSBC has
focused on integrating its newly acquired operations
with its existing business with a view to maximising
the synergy between the various components.
International Managers, a group of approximately
400 mobile executives with wide international
experience and committed to long-term careers
overseas within HSBC, are key to this integration
process.
E-banking
In recent years, HSBC has been reconfiguring its
operations for the internet and putting in place some
major building blocks. In 2001, some US$2.5 billion
was spent by HSBC on technology, including a
significant proportion on dotcom initiatives. HSBC
will be one of the first to provide customers with
services via the internet on a multi-product, cross-
border basis.
HSBC’s overall electronic banking customer
base now exceeds 3 million, representing growth of
over 100 per cent in 2001, with services available
through the internet, personal digital assistants
(‘PDAs’ ), mobile phones (short message service
(‘SMS’ ) and wireless application protocol (‘WAP’ )
based services), television and private network
connections. HSBC e-banking services are currently
offered in 17 countries and 21 businesses across the
world. Customers in over 150 countries and
territories have accessed HSBC’ s sites in 2001 with
an average daily number of customer visits at over
210,000, a running rate of 76,650,000 visits a year.
In 2001 HSBC launched a number of new major
customer services in the e-channel. The investment
in a new generation hsbc.com centre has seen HSBC
launch its first dedicated business proposition aimed
at the Small and Medium Enterprise (‘SME’ ) market
place. The initial launch has been to the UK market
with rollout to Hong Kong, USA and Canada in
2002.
Another major e-initiative in 2001 was the
announcement of a strategic agreement between
HSBC and Yahoo! Inc to deliver a co-branded
person-to-person payments system called ‘Yahoo!
PayDirect from HSBC’ to Yahoo! and HSBC
customers around the world. The Yahoo! PayDirect
from HSBC system allows anyone with an e-mail
address and a bank account or credit card to securely
send money to another party. The technology was
pioneered in the US on-line auction markets and has
a large loyal user base. An operations centre was
established in Buffalo upstate New York and the
system was successfully launched in the latter part of
2001. Rollout of the system to other countries during
2002 is in progress.
Further investment in Customer Relationship
Management (‘CRM’ ) capability throughout 2001
has given HSBC the capability to provide additional
intelligent services to customers. In HSBC Bank plc
the ‘Individual Solutions’ capability allows tailored
messaging to be delivered to customers via all
channels.