HSBC 2005 Annual Report Download - page 51

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• Finance Asia named HSBC ‘Best Trade Bank in
Asia’ for the ninth successive year, reflecting
HSBC’s continuing development of new
products and services.
Europe
• In the UK, HSBC continued to focus on
business start-ups and customers switching from
other banks to grow its customer base. As a
result, more customers moved their banking
relationships from other financial institutions to
HSBC than to any other established high street
bank.
• Investment in customer service as a
differentiating factor continued, with the
recruitment of further relationship managers, the
improved deployment and training of over 600
dedicated small business specialists and a
substantial investment in mobile working
technology.
• Recognising lack of scale, HSBC outsourced the
processing of its UK vehicle finance contract
hire product to a third party provider, Lex
Vehicle Leasing. As well as releasing capital,
this provided HSBC with access to Lex’s IT
systems and expertise to enable a greater range
of services to be offered to customers.
• In France, the most experienced relationship
managers focused on the largest 350 MME
customers in 2004, resulting in income growth
from this segment of 17 per cent in 2005. In
addition, a centralised and specialised
franchising team was established to increase
penetration of this significant and expanding
market.
• A substantial investment was made to grow the
Commercial Banking franchise in Turkey with
the launch of SME banking, invoice discounting
and commercial cards.
Hong Kong
• Loan balances increased as HSBC added
relationship managers and launched two new
pre-approved lending products, the ‘Pre-
approved Small Business Loan’ and the ‘Pre-
approved Business Revolving Credit’ account.
• The first ever Commercial Banking brand
awareness campaign was launched in 2005.
SME sales outlets were also rebranded as ‘SME
Centres’ to strengthen the brand identity and
more closely align HSBC with this market
segment.
• Supporting customer service, a new SME call
centre, employing 100 staff and incorporating a
dedicated sales hotline, took over four million
calls in 2005.
Rest of Asia-Pacific
• Regional relationship management offering a
single point of contact across several countries
was implemented in the Middle East. A similar
approach was adopted in Hong Kong, mainland
China and Taiwan.
• The sales distribution network was expanded in
key growth markets. In mainland China, three
new branches and an additional sub-branch,
with commercial banking presence, were
opened. In South Korea, four commercial
banking centres were established to extend
HSBC’s presence in the MME market.
• Across the region, several liability products
were tailored for individual markets. HSBC in
Bangladesh designed an innovative deposit
scheme, ‘Double Your Money’, and in Taiwan
HSBC launched a ‘Cash Marketing Campaign’.
North America
• HSBC’s market share of small business
customers in New York City increased,
supported by the success of the BusinessSmart
Value package which added 41,000 new
accounts in 2005. HSBC Bank USA was voted
the No. 1 Small Business Administration lender
in New York State.
• The MME and commercial real estate
businesses continued to expand in Boston,
Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle,
with new offices established in Washington DC,
Philadelphia and New Jersey.
• HSBC Mexico was awarded ‘The best initiative
in support of small and medium business owners
in Mexico’ by the Mexican Minister of
Economy for ‘Estimulo’, a tailor-made financial
services package.
South America
• 40 commercial centres with 100 specialised staff
were established to expand sales activity and
address the banking needs of over 12,500 larger
SMEs in Brazil.
• In Argentina, customer service was improved
through the launch of an in-house internet
banking solution, PC Banking Empresas, and a
dedicated inbound call centre.