Appointment as Group Managing Director

10 May 2011

APPOINTMENT AS GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR

HSBC Holdings plc has appointed Richard E T Bennett, 59, Group General Counsel, a Group Managing Director with effect from 3 May 2011. Richard will continue to report to Stuart Gulliver, Group Chief Executive, and joins the Group Management Board.

Richard has been Group General Counsel since 1 January 2010. A qualified lawyer in the UK, Hong Kong and Victoria, Australia, Richard joined The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Hong Kong in 1979 as the Assistant Group Legal Adviser. He was promoted to Deputy Group Legal Adviser in 1988 and then served from 1993 as Head of Legal and Compliance, Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong, before returning to the UK to take up the position of Group General Manager and Group Head of Legal and Compliance from 1 January 1998.

Media enquiries to Brendan McNamara on +44 (0)20 7991 0655 or at [email protected]

Note to editors:

HSBC Holdings plcHSBC Holdings plc, the parent company of the HSBC Group, is headquartered in London. The Group serves customers worldwide from around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. With assets of US$2,598bn at 31 March 2011, HSBC is one of the world's largest banking and financial services organisations. HSBC is marketed worldwide as 'the world's local bank'.