HSBC 2005 Corporate Partner of the Year

Headquartered in London, HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world. HSBC's international network comprises over 9,800 offices in 77 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.

With listings on the London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Bermuda stock exchanges, shares in HSBC Holdings plc are held by nearly 200,000 shareholders in some 100 countries and territories. The shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American Depositary Receipts.

Through an international network linked by advanced technology, including a rapidly growing ecommerce capability, HSBC provides a comprehensive range of financial services: personal financial services; commercial banking; corporate, investment banking and markets; private banking; and other activities.

We believe our diversity profile at all levels of the business should reflect that of our customers. Diversity for us is not simply about gender, ethnicity, disability or age, but also about open mindedness, embracing non-conformity and creating balanced teams.

We believe it makes sound commercial sense to employ people with different approaches to disciplines such as leadership and problem solving, generating and sharing ideas, and building relationships to drive business growth. We also believe that having respect for people of all types inspires loyalty in both employees and customers.

Our commitment to diversity starts at the top. Our Board is one of the most international in the world and has four female Directors, more than most of the world's leading companies. We have an Executive Director who is responsible for diversity at a global level, but every one of our employees has a part to play. Our workforce is also diverse: more than half are women, one in four is Asian, one in five is Latin American.

HSBC supports the communities in which we operate both through the involvement of our employees and through donations. Our policy is to focus our efforts on education - particularly for disadvantaged young people - and on the environment. We aim to channel 75 per cent of our community giving into these two areas. In the markets where we were able to record them, some 237,000 hours of working time were devoted to supporting our communities in 2004.

While donations budgets are set at individual business or country level, donations larger than US$25,000 require approval at the Group level. During 2004, this process has been facilitated by the development of GIFTS, a global donations database. At year-end, 24 countries were using the database. The system will enable better internal and external reporting and, in the longer term, help us to analyse the impact of our community giving programs.HSBC