Tax transparency

We apply the spirit as well as the letter of the law in all territories where we operate, and have adopted the UK Code of Practice for the Taxation of Banks. We seek to pay our fair share of tax in the countries in which we operate.

Our own policies often go further than the minimum required by local laws and regulations, and we continue to strengthen our processes to help ensure our banking services are not associated with any arrangements known or suspected to be designed to facilitate tax evasion.

Major regulatory reform is underway in numerous jurisdictions to ensure the timely sharing of information with relevant authorities.

The United States’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and other initiatives are designed to foster greater transparency and ensure that an individual wishing to “hide” assets from tax authorities will be unable to do so.

HSBC fully welcomes and supports these reforms. We have been compliant with the United States’ FATCA since the effective date of 1 July 2014 and have adopted all necessary measures to fulfil our obligations following the move to Common Reporting in 2016-2018.

Find out more about how HSBC continues to support and comply with global initiatives to improve tax transparency and protect the integrity of financial systems:

• The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) (opens in new window)
• The OECD Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information, also known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) (opens in new window)

Information on some other key global tax transparency initiatives can be found here:

• The Capital Requirements (Country-by-Country reporting) Regulations 2013 (31 December 2023) (PDF 278KB)
• The OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative (opens in new window)