A UK-based financial services and bank holding company. Its subsidiary banks have provided credit and loans to private prison corporation GEO Group.
HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational financial services and bank holding company headquartered in London. Through its subsidiaries, HSBC conducts banking operations in 64 countries and territories. As of 2021, HSBC was the second largest operator of banks in Europe. In fiscal year 2020, the company employed approximately 226,000 people worldwide, served 40 million customers, and reported an annual revenue of $50.4 billion.
HSBC has been identified as one of the major financial institutions supporting private prison and immigrant detention companies. In 2016, HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., a subsidiary of HSBC, became an underwriter for GEO Group and purchased $14 million worth of banknotes, set to expire in 2016. HSBC served as part of a syndicate of banks that provided a $350 million loan. This syndicate also included Barclays, BNP Paribas, Fifth Third Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Regions Bank, SunTrust Bank (now Truist Financial Corporation), TD Securities, and Wells Fargo.
In 2016, GEO Group executed a Letter of Offer with HSBC Bank Australia, providing for a bank guarantee line totaling $77.1 million. This allowed GEO Group to provide letters of credit in order to facilitate one of its subsidiaries' work on a private prison project in Ravenhall, Australia. In 2019, this guarantee line was reduced to $45.5 million. As of December 2020, approximately $43 million in letters of credit had been issued under the agreement.