HSBC Holdings Plc Releases 2010 Final Results

Hamilton, Bermuda – 28 February, 2011 - HSBC Holdings Limited (the “Company”; Ticker: HSBC.BH) has today released 2010 Full Year End results the full details of which can be found on www.hsbc.com

HIGHLIGHTS

Strong financial performance:

• Underlying pre-tax profit up by almost US$5bn or 36% to US$18.4bn.
• Pre-tax profit more than doubled to US$19bn on a reported basis.
• Profit attributable to shareholders rose to US$13.2bn (2009: US$5.8bn).
• Loan impairment charges down US$12.4bn to US$14bn, lowest since 2006.
• Earnings per share up 115% to US$0.73 (2009: US$0.34).
• Dividends declared in respect of 2010 totalled US$6.3bn, or US$0.36 per ordinary share, with a fourth interim dividend for 2010 of US$0.12 per ordinary share.

Continued benefits from HSBC’s universal banking model:

• Profitable in every customer group and region, including North America, for first time since 2006.
• Improved Personal Financial Services performance to achieve pre-tax profit of US$3.5bn.
• Commercial Banking up strongly, with pre-tax profit rising 48% to US$6bn.
• Global Banking and Markets pre-tax profit of US$9.2bn, second only to 2009.
• Faster growing markets accounted for 34% of customer lending, up from 26% in 2008, on a reported basis.
• Rest of Asia-Pacific pre-tax profit of US$5.7bn, at a similar level to Hong Kong for first time.
• Continued capital generation – core tier 1 ratio increased to 10.5% from 9.4% on a reported basis.
• Strong liquidity maintained – ratio of advances-to-deposits at 78.1%.
• Open for business and supporting customer needs
• Customer lending up 8% to US$958bn; deposits up 7% to US$1.2tn.
• No. 1 mortgage lender in Hong Kong; record share of UK mortgage market.
• UK total Commercial Banking lending up 3% to £39.5bn; new loans up 17% to £9.9bn.
• UK new loans to SMEs up 19% to £2.4bn; total SME lending down 1.6% as customers repaid.
• Added over half a million Commercial Banking customers globally; helped 2,400 businesses a week start-up in UK.
• Emerging market assets under management increased over 20% to US$145bn on a reported basis.

HSBC HOLDINGS REPORTS PRE-TAX PROFIT OF US$19,037 MILLION

HSBC made a profit before tax of US$19,037m, an increase of US$11,958m, or 169%, compared with 2009.

Net interest income of US$39,441m was US$1,289m, or 3.2%, lower than 2009.

Net operating income before loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions of

US$68,247m was US$2,066m, or 3.1%, higher than 2009.

Total operating expenses of US$37,688m rose by US$3,293m, or 9.6%, compared with 2009. On an underlying basis operating expenses were up 8% compared with 2009.

HSBC’s cost efficiency ratio was 55.2% compared with 52.0% in 2009.

Loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions were US$14,039m in 2010, US$12,449m lower than 2009.

The core tier 1 ratio and tier 1 ratio for the Group remained strong at 10.5% and 12.1%,

respectively, at 31 December 2010.

The Group’s total assets at 31 December 2010 were US$2,455bn, an increase of US$91bn, or 3.8%, since 31 December 2009.