HSBC Bank Development Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

HSBC Bank Development - Case Study Example This paper is a review of its strategic planning and resulting growth along with a brief history of the company. The original Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was started in 1865 by a visionary Scottish businessman called Thomas Sutherland to facilitate growing trade between China and India and the Europe. The company began rapid expansion in Europe and USA even though the main focus was expansion in Asian countries. The company at that time grew large enough even to fund government projects in many developing countries in Asia. World War II saw many of its operations in Asia being closed down. The bank realised that focusing only on Asia was risky and began a expansion program mainly through acquisitions in Europe, Asia and the formation of a organization in the USA. The prominent acquisitions include the Hand Seng Bank, the Mercantile Bank and the British Bank of the Middle East (all in the Asia-Pacific region), the Marine Midland Bank (USA) and the Midland Bank (UK). "The formation of HSBC Holdings plc in 1991, creating a holding company for the entire Group with its shares quoted in London and Hong Kong, showed that the Group viewed Europe and the London market in particular, as a vital part of its future development." (Group History 1980-1999. 2009). A typical departmental structure is explained here. ... It should be noted that the structure is based on its policies of customer service policies and other strategies. The head of the structure is the CEO followed by nine departments. They are legal and financial control, Operations, Human resources, Commercial Banking, Internal Audit, Marketing, Treasury and Personal Financial Services. There is an administrative department under the financial control department. Under the Operations section, there are seven departments, namely IT, Support services, Property and security, Credit operations, Credit cards, Projects and Cash. The ATM department comes under Cash section. Under Commercial Banking, there are the Trade Services and Credit departments. Under the Personal Financial Services Department there are Customer Service, Teller Area, Consumer Finance and Loan Approving Department (for personal financial services). (Organization Chart. 2008). Group structure of HSBC Holdings Plc: Considering the size of the company, the organisational structure of the bank is extremely complex with seven major division and many other divisions formed under each of the seven ones mentioned above. The seven major divisions are HSBC Latin American Holdings (UK) Ltd, Grupo Financiero HSBC SA de CV, HSBC Investment Holdings Plc, HSBC Finance (Netherlands), HSBC Overseas Holding (UK) Ltd, and HSBC Bank Plc. As the name suggests, HSBC Latin America bases its operations in those countries while Grupo Financiero operates in Mexico. HSBC Investment Holding operates in UK and Taiwan. HSBC Finance headquartered in the Netherlands has operations in several countries (mainly in Asia) like Malaysia, Panama, Middle East, Hong Kong, China, Bermuda and Japan. It has control over the original Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking