HSBC Continental Europe (formerly HSBC France SA) is a subsidiary of

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

, headquartered in the

8th arrondissement of Paris The 8th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, the arrondissement is colloquially referred to as ''le huitième'' ("the eighth"). The arrondissement, ...

History

It was formed on 1 November 2005 when

rebranded CCF S.A. (

Crédit Commercial de France The ''Crédit Commercial de France'' (CCF, "Commercial Credit ompanyof France") is a commercial bank in France, founded in 1894 as the ''Banque Suisse et Française'' and renamed to CCF in 1917. By the end of the 1920s, it had grown to be the six ...

), together with its subsidiaries UBP, Banque de Picardie and Banque Hervet. HSBC had acquired CCF in 2000; the bank changed its name to HSBC S.A. and then to HSBC France. About half of the former networks of

CCF CCF can refer to: Computing * Confidential Consortium Framework, a free and open source blockchain infrastructure framework developed by Microsoft * Customer Care Framework, a Microsoft product Finance * Credit conversion factor converts the a ...

- Union de Banques à Paris, Banque Hervet, Banque de Picardie and

Banque de Baecque Beau The Banque de Baecque Beau was a French bank that now is subsumed in HSBC France. In 1837, two traders, Camille Cailliez and Charles de Baecque, established a partnership to engage in negotiating commissions on merchandise and in banking affairs. ...

- now trade as HSBC. This represents a 380 strong network of branches in France with a very strong presence in the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

region. Other group operations in France include a significant

HSBC Private Bank HSBC Global Private Banking is part of the Wealth and Personal Banking division within the HSBC Group (as of 2020, HSBC was the world's sixth largest bank by total assets and market capitalization) They provide award winning private banking ser ...

presence, along with a major Corporate Institutional Banking and Markets operation. The Paris

trading floor Open outcry is a method of communication between professionals on a stock exchange or futures exchange, typically on a trading floor. It involves shouting and the use of hand signals to transfer information primarily about buy and sell orde ...

is the Group's second-largest trading floor in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. Specific areas of particular expertise and responsibility are the trading of

government bonds A government bond or sovereign bond is a form of bond issued by a government to support public spending. It generally includes a commitment to pay periodic interest, called coupon payments'','' and to repay the face value on the maturity date ...

and

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

interest rate derivative In finance, an interest rate derivative (IRD) is a derivative whose payments are determined through calculation techniques where the underlying benchmark product is an interest rate, or set of different interest rates. There are a multitude of diff ...

s, arranging of corporate cash calls, disintermediated and structured finance and

project finance Project finance is the long-term financing of infrastructure and industrial projects based upon the projected cash flows of the project rather than the balance sheets of its sponsors. Usually, a project financing structure involves a number of equi ...

. HSBC France had seven regional subsidiaries with 420 branches, but sold them to

Banque Populaire Groupe Banque Populaire ("People's Bank") was a French group of cooperative banks. The central entity was controlled by 15 independent regional banks and also operated under the CASDEN and the Crédit Coopératif subsidiaries. In 2006, Groupe Ba ...

in 2008. These regional subsidiaries were

Société Marseillaise de Crédit Société Marseillaise de Crédit (SMC) is a bank in France. History The Société Marseillaise de Crédit was created in 1865 by Joseph Grandval, Victor Roux, Albert Rostand and Armand Bergasse.

, Banque de Savoie, Banque Chaix, Banque Marze, Banque Dupuy, Banque de Parseval, Banque Pelletier and Crédit Commercial du Sud Ouest. In December 2020, HSBC France rebranded to "HSBC Continental Europe" along with all HSBC European branches (Belgium, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechia and Sweden). The move was expected to create "a modernized universal banking model" and provide "a new momentum to its European operations". In March 2021 it was reported that HSBC France was in talks to sell its retail division to

Cerberus Capital Management Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American private equity firm,Leaders Magazine"Providing Economic Opportunity: An Interview with The Honorable Dan Quayle, Chairman, Cerberus Global Investments, LLC". specializing in distressed investing. ...

CCF joins the HSBC Group

When HSBC acquired CCF, CCF was operating with 650

branches A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...

and

assets In financial accountancy, financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value ...

of €69 billion. In April 2000,

HSBC Holdings plc HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tril ...

announced its intention to acquire the bank and completed the deal in July. That month, HSBC Holdings plc listed on the

Paris Stock Exchange Euronext Paris is France's securities market, formerly known as the Paris Bourse, which merged with the Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels exchanges in September 2000 to form Euronext NV. As of 2022, the 795 companies listed had a combined market ...

for the first time. The acquisition enabled HSBC to establish itself in one of the main European markets and to build a strong platform in the

euro zone The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies ...

. CCF continued to expand with the purchase of Banque Pelletier (2000) and Banque Hervet (2001). CCF won a bidding-war for Banque Hervet, which the French government was re-privatizing, when its bid of $480 million beat out bids from

Paribas The Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (“Bank of Paris and the Netherlands”), generally referred to from 1982 as Paribas, was a French investment bank based in Paris. In May 2000, it merged with the Banque Nationale de Paris to form BNP Paribas. ...

, Credit du Nord -

Dexia Dexia N.V./S.A., or the Dexia Group, is a Franco-Belgian financial institution formed in 1996. At its peak in 2010, it had about 35,200 members of staff and a core shareholders' equity of €19.2 billion. In 2008, the bank entered severe ...

, and insurer Groupama. With the acquisition of CCF, HSBC acquired CCF's stake in

Lombard Bank Lombard Bank Malta Plc is one of Malta's major banks, together with Bank of Valletta, HSBC Bank Malta and APS Bank. The Government of Malta through the National Development and Social Fund (NDSF) owns 49.1% percent of the bank. It acquired th ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. At the time, HSBC already owned the largest bank in Malta. In 2002, HSBC sold its shares in Lombard Bank Malta to Swiss-based

Banca Unione di Credito Banca Unione di Credito is a full-service bank based in Lugano, Switzerland, that specialises in private banking. History *1919 Credito Italiano established Banca Unione di Credito in Switzerland. *1947 The Fiat Group acquired the entire share ca ...

. CCF also sold its 93.3 per cent stake in Crédit International d’Egypte (CIE), an Egyptian commercial bank listed on the Cairo Stock Exchange, to Crédit Agricole Indosuez (75%) and the El Mansour and El Maghraby groups (25%). HSBC was already operating in Egypt through

HSBC Bank Egypt HSBC Bank Egypt SAE is a multinational bank in Egypt, providing a wide range of banking and related financial services through a network of 100 branches and 20 mini bank units in Cairo, Alexandria, Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada, Borg El Arab and 6t ...

. In 2002, CCF acquired 11 branches outside

from

Banque Worms The Banque Worms was a merchant bank founded by Hypolite Worms in 1928 as a division of Worms & Cie. The banking services division provided financing services to other branches of Worms & Cie, which were involved in ship building, shipping and the ...

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

Check Fee Collusion

In 2010 the French government's

Autorité de la concurrence The (; ) is France's national competition regulator. Its predecessor, the Competition Council, was established in the 1950s. The Competition Authority is an , responsible for preventing anti-competitive practices and monitoring the functionin ...

(the department in charge of regulating competition) fined eleven French banks, including HSBC France, the sum of 384,900,000 Euros for colluding to charge unjustified fees on check processing, especially for extra fees charged during the transition from paper check transfer to "Exchanges Check-Image" electronic transfer.3rd UPDATE: French Watchdog Fines 11 Banks For Fee Cartel
Elena Bertson, Dow Jones News Wires / Wall Street Journal online, retr 2010 9 20Collusion in the banking sector
Press Release of Autorité de la concurrence, République Française, 20 September 2010, retrv 2010 9 20

References

External links

HSBC France website

HSBC France bank profile (in English)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hsbc France Banks based in Paris

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Banks under direct supervision of the European Central Bank 2000 mergers and acquisitions Banks of France

History

CCF joins the HSBC Group

Check Fee Collusion

See also

References

External links