Household HSBC Watch

In 2002, HSBC bought US consumer finance giant Household Finance for US$14.2bn in a deal that gave it access to 50 million customers in the US, Canada and the UK. Since then the English giant has successfully spread its consumer finance model around the world’s emerging markets.

After buying the Brazil’s largest consumer finance company Losango in 2003, HSBC has grown to be country’s eighth largest bank through smaller acquisitions, but HSBC wants more.

“Brazil has been identified as one of our four top growth countries in the emerging markets along with China, India and Mexico. We still feel that we are underrepresented in Brazil compared to the size of the country and not as large as we would like it to be in our global operations, so we are definitely in a growth mode in Brazil. But for the time being there is very little to purchase and values in the marketplace might be a little bit on the high side so we are focusing on organic growth instead,” HSBC South America CEO Youssef Nasr said.

Household International was charged with predatory lending and paid the highest predatory lending settlement in United States history. When HSBC U.S. regulators asked for public comments about HSBC’s proposed purchase of Household, consumer advocates strongly opposed exportation of predatory lending.