“Can HSBC leverage its global banking network, regulatory licenses, and BaaS API platform to become the infrastructure layer of choice for fintechs, B2B marketplaces, and enterprise platforms embedding financial services?”
HSBC is one of the world's largest banks, operating primarily as a chartered institution across retail, commercial, and investment banking globally. In recent years, HSBC has made a deliberate strategic move toward becoming an embedded finance infrastructure provider — launching a public developer portal with BaaS APIs for account onboarding, payments, virtual cards, and FX disbursements, and forming the SemFi joint venture with Tradeshift to push HSBC financing and payment rails directly into B2B e-commerce platforms. The 2023 acquisition of SVB UK created HSBC Innovation Banking, a dedicated unit serving fintech and startup clients and positioning HSBC as a banking partner-of-choice for emerging fintechs (as seen in the Qover partnership).
HSBC discloses HSBC (self-operated) as its banking provider, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
HSBC does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through HSBC (self-operated).
HSBC processes payments through HSBC Payments (self-operated).
HSBC's cards are issued through HSBC (self-issued).
HSBC connects to bank accounts through Yapily.
HSBC uses HSBC Global Disbursements (self-operated) for FX and cross-border payouts.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 6 layers in HSBC's stack: Payments / PSP (HSBC Payments (self-operated)); Banking / BaaS (HSBC (self-operated)); Card issuing (HSBC (self-issued)); Lending (Invoice Financing (SemFi by HSBC / Tradeshift), Point of Sale Finance (B2B BNPL via Developer Portal API), HSBC Merchant Financing Programme (e-commerce merchant lending), Asset Based Lending (ABL) and 3 others); Open banking (Yapily); FX & payouts (HSBC Global Disbursements (self-operated)).
HSBC is founded in 1865 and headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against HSBC and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.