Household HSBC Watch

Britain’s HSBC Holdings, one of the world’s largest banks, plans to expand its consumer-finance business into more emerging markets, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing an interview with HSBC’s No. 2 executive.

“The big theme, I believe, over the next few years in consumer finance is the portability of our model into markets starved for credit cards and loans,” HSBC group chief executive officer Stephen Green said in an interview. Green is a contender to eventually succeed chairman John Bond.

“Any analysis of the demographics of emerging markets tells you that consumer finance is going to be an important part, and a rapidly growing part, of the financial-services spectrum for a long time to come,” Green said, the paper reported.

The British bank is a relative newcomer to consumer finance, a business that includes credit cards, personal loans and home-equity lines. HSBC jumped into the business in 2003 with its acquisition of Household International Inc, a huge US consumer-finance company.

Green said HSBC plans to make a big push, including in consumer finance, into Brazil, Mexico and Turkey, as well as continuing to ramp up its Asian business, the paper reported.