Public Intelligence

To examine the current money laundering and terrorist financing threats associated with correspondent banking, the Subcommittee selected HSBC as a case study. HSBC is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, with over $2.5 trillion in assets, 89 million customers, 300,000 employees, and 2011 profits of nearly $22 billion. HSBC, whose initials originally stood for Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation, now has operations in over 80 countries, with hundreds of affiliates spanning the globe. Its parent corporation, HSBC Holdings plc, called “HSBC Group,” is headquartered in London, and its Chief Executive Officer is located in Hong Kong.

A list of 2,059 names of Greek citizens that have Swiss bank accounts with HSBC. The list was originally published by a Greek magazine called Hot Doc on October 27, 2012 resulting in the arrest of its editor Kostas Vaxevanis for “breach of privacy”.

HSBC Holdings Plc said on Monday it will likely face criminal or civil charges from an expanding investigation into its ties to allegedly illegal money transactions, including some tied to Iran. The disclosure in a regulatory filing shows the increasingly serious nature of inquiries into the London-based bank’s business. HSBC already is the subject of multiple U.S. law-enforcement probes for ties to illegal money transactions. Monday’s filing was the first time the bank disclosed that Iranian transactions are under scrutiny and that it could face a criminal charge.

Libyan Investment Authority Management Information Report documenting the Qaddaffi regime’s foreign investments as of June 2010.

Several Western financial institutions were holding Libyan state oil revenue last year, according to the nonprofit Global Witness, which cited a document it obtained. The document names Goldman Sachs, HSBC Holdings, Societe Generale and several other institutions holding some of the sovereign wealth fund’s assets, which totaled more than $53 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2010, Global Witness said. The Libyan sovereign wealth fund, as well as the national oil company, are now under international sanctions. Many of the national oil company’s subsidiaries are also under sanctions.

A U.S. unit of HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank, that agreed to strengthen efforts to combat money laundering said it’s still being investigated by the Justice Department and other agencies for compliance with bank-secrecy laws. “We remain the subject of ongoing inquiries, including grand jury subpoenas and other requests for information, by government agencies, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice,” the London-based bank’s U.S. division, HSBC USA Inc., disclosed today in a quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. HSBC North America Holdings Inc. and its subsidiary, HSBC Bank USA, reached agreements in October with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Board to reform a program to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, the U.S. law that combats money laundering.

Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with more than $5 trillion in annual revenues and nearly 10 million employees. Member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets and pay nearly half of all corporate income taxes paid to the federal government. Annually, they return $133 billion in dividends to shareholders and the economy.