HSBC acquires stake in CIBIL

HSBC Holdings PLC
19 May 2005


                   HSBC ACQUIRES FIVE PER CENT STAKE IN CIBIL

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited has acquired five per cent
of the paid-up capital of Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL) for
a total consideration of Rs25 million (US$575,000).

Established in April 2004, CIBIL is India's first credit bureau. It comprises a
consumer credit bureau and a commercial credit bureau which manage positive and
negative credit information in relation to personal and commercial borrowers.
Information held on CIBIL's centralised database is only available to CIBIL
members, of which there are currently over 100.

Nicholas Winsor, head of personal financial services at HSBC India, said: "The
consumer credit market in India has considerable room to grow before it reaches
the levels witnessed in developed economies. HSBC's experience in other markets
has shown us the benefits and importance of having robust, industry-wide
customer data, and is one of the main reasons for our investment in CIBIL."



Notes to editors:

1. HSBC in India
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in India offers a full
range of banking and financial services from its 40 branches in the 20 cities of
Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad,
Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Pune,
Trivandrum, Thane, Vadodara and Visakhapatnam, and some 150 ATMs across the
country. HSBC has a credit card base of some 800,000 customers in India and is
one of the leading credit card merchant acquirers in the Indian credit card
industry.

2. The HSBC Group
HSBC Holdings plc is headquartered in the UK. The HSBC Group serves over 110
million customers worldwide from over 9,800 offices in 77 countries and
territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East
and Africa. With assets of US$1,277 billion at 31 December 2004, HSBC is one of
the world's largest banking and financial services organisations. HSBC is
marketed worldwide as 'the world's local bank'.



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