People are just finding out what HSBC stands for and even their customers have no idea
PEOPLE have only just figured out what HSBC stands for and it’s blown their minds.
The bank has over 39 million customers worldwide and has been around since 1864, when it was founded by Thomas Sutherland.
But it appears that unlike other corporations, Thomas decided not to use his own name to build it.
Instead, the young Scotsman came up with an idea of what to call the business while working in Hong Kong for a large shipping firm.
According to the company’s history page, he read an article on Scottish banking that inspired him.
After noticing that local and foreign trade had increased rapidly in Hong Kong, China and Japan, he founded the company and called it The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.
People across social media have only just found out about this little known fact and have been blown away by it.
Referring to a report they read online, one person shared on Twitter: “they wrote The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and i was WTF, but saw HSBC in brackets”. [sic]
“Saw the name The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and was blur for a moment. So used to its shortname, HSBC.” [sic] another said.
Meanwhile, one man on TikTok, @knoxstudy, shared what several initialisms really stand for, including M&M’s, HSBC, H&M, IKEA and BMW.
“How did these companies choose their initialisms for their names,” he said as he pointed at the list.
“If you ever thought the apostrophe was weird in M&M’s, there’s a reason for that. It’s actually named after the founders: Forest Mars and Bruce Murrie. So it’s Mars and Murrie’s business.
“HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation… That’s all I have to say about that really…”
He went on to share that H&M was founded in 1947 as a ladies fashion store and was eventually called Hennes & Mauritz.
IKEA, meanwhile, was started by Ingvar Kamprad, who “then took the name of his farm and the name of the local village to give us the name we know today”.
It stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.
And finally, BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke, which is German for Bavarian Motor Works.
People were quick to comment on his video as one person wrote: “HSBC is British I don’t understand why Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation”. [sic]
Sharing their opinion, another said: “Hsbc was smart for making it just initials as it makes it subconsciously more global, local and ‘safe’ in the mind of consumers”. [sic]
While a third shared: “why did I think HSBC was a British bank,” [sic] with a laughing emoji.
And a fourth added: “i thought it was Singapore all this time not shanghai”. [sic]