The bank that was built on shipping and opium trade
Thomas Sutherland founded Hongkong and Shanghae (sic) Banking Co (Limited) in March 1865, based, as he said at the time, on 'sound Scottish banking principles'.
Born into a Calvinist family in Aberdeen, Mr Sutherland - possessing a grammar school education - came to Hong Kong in his early 20s as a junior assistant for Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation. At 31, the shrewd Scotsman had already become the superintendent for China and Japan for P&O, whose fortune was largely made on the opium trade.
Together with local Western merchants he founded the bank, immediately opening offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai to help finance shipping and the opium business.
Branches were opened in China, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, Europe and North America. It often pioneered modern bank practices and issued its own currency, including in Hong Kong, throughout the Far East.
During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1943, chief manager Vandeleur Grayburn and successor David Edmondston, as well as hundreds of staffers, died while interned by the Japanese.
Although its headquarters decamped to London in 1993, HSBC, often simply called 'The Bank', is still considered a local institution.
In Shanghai, its influence grew quickly as the bank financed guns and railroads for colonial Britain as well as being the banker for several Qing dynasty governments.
In 1874, it handled the first public loan and issued most of them thereafter for decades. The lender largely withdrew from the mainland after the communist revolution and handed over its headquarters to the government. But with opening and reform in the late 1970s, HSBC returned, becoming the first foreign bank to open a representative office in Beijing in 1980.
HSBC's continued expansion in Asia, especially China, is something of a personal mission for its chairman, Stephen Green.
In addition to being a banker, Mr Green is an Anglican priest. For him, 'the kingdom of God can be found in the thick of the markets', especially through globalisation, which he sees as bringing not only economic development but cross-cultural fertilisation.
