HSBC’s U.S. retail unit lost $518 million before taxes in the first three quarters of 2020 — a margin that has widened from $182 million in 2018 and $279 million last year, according to the Financial Times.
A pullout would cap a 40-year brick-and-mortar presence that launched in earnest in 1980, when the London lender bought a controlling interest in Buffalo, New York-based Marine Midland Bank. HSBC now has about 150 branches, mostly huddled on the East Coast, after closing 79 in the first half of this year.
