Is HSBC ethical?
Our research highlights multiple ethical issues with HSBC, including providing financing for and investments in companies complicit in the occupation of Palestine and companies producing nuclear weapons.
Below we outline some of these issues. To see the full detailed stories, and HSBC overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.
Lending policies
HSBC scores very badly in Ethical Consumer’s rating of its lending policies. The bank has a policy prohibiting the financing of clients who manufacture, trade, purchase or sell weapons for military use. But the Don’t Bank on the Bomb website, which is run by the NGOs PAX and International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, claims that HSBC had share- and bondholdings and provided loans and underwriting to companies manufacturing nuclear weapons in 2024.
The bank does not appear to have policies addressing other human rights issues, such as the financing of companies involved in workers’ rights abuses or operating in oppressive regimes.
HSBC has been identified as one of the largest European creditors and investors for companies that are actively involved with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Don’t Buy into Occupation report – produced by a coalition of 25 civil society groups – found that HSBC had provided over $18 billion in loans and underwriting and more than $4 billion in investments to 58 implicated companies between 2021 and 2024.
Environment and climate
HSBC also performs very poorly in Ethical Consumer’s climate rating.
Its Energy Policy from February 2025 states: “HSBC recognises that fossil fuels, especially natural gas, have a role to play in the transition, even though that role will continue to diminish. [...] we will continue to provide finance to clients keeping oil and gas flowing to meet current and future (declining) global demand”.
HSBC is the 12th biggest financier of fossil fuels worldwide, according to the Banking on Climate Chaos report, an analysis by environmental NGOs including Banktrack and Rainforest Action Network. The report found that the bank provided $192 billion for fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement (between 2016 and 2023).
Animals
In 2021, international NGO Sinergia Animal rated multiple financial institutions based on the strength of their animal welfare policies, for example whether they would fund companies involved in the fur trade, animal testing or the use of cages for animals on farms. HSBC scored just 2%, indicating very poor performance. The highest scoring companies received 95%.
Politics and finances
HSBC also scores poorly for its company ethos.
Alongside financing everything from arms to coal, the company also paid its CEO Noel Quinn over £10 million in 2023, which Ethical Consumer considers to be excessive.
HSBC owns multiple subsidiaries in tax havens, including holding companies – which are high risk for tax avoidance use – in Bermuda and Luxembourg. While it has published financial data for countries in which it operates, it has not explained all of its activities in tax havens. It therefore scored very badly in Ethical Consumer’s tax conduct rating.
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The text above was written in March 2025, and most research was conducted in February 2025.