HSBC Holdings

Brit Thomas Sutherland founded HSBC in Hong Kong in March 1865, opening its first office in Shanghai the following month. The principle was to have a local Asian bank to finance global trade in commodities like tea, cotton, silk and sugar. HSBC expanded into investment banking and into new retail markets, including the U.K., with its 1992 acquisition of Midland Bank, and the U.S. with Marine Midland. Today, HSBC has 42 million customers in 62 countries, with Hong Kong and Britain being its biggest markets by some margin. Although it is headquartered in London, its growth focus is firmly back in Asia—particularly mainland China, Singapore, India and the UAE—and internationally mobile customers, who already represent a sixth of its total.