HSBC CONFERENCE CALL

HSBC Holdings PLC
16 December 2002

                              HSBC CONFERENCE CALL

Douglas Flint, Group Finance Director, HSBC Holdings plc, hosted a conference
call at 16:00 (London time) on 13 December 2002 on the agreement reached with
Household International, Inc. for HSBC to acquire Household.

To listen to a replay of the conference call, the telephone numbers and passcode
are:

US domestic callers          1 888 286 8010

All other callers            1 617 801 6888

Passcode - all callers       72230

The replay will be available until 17:00 (London time) on Monday 23 December
2002. Copies of the transcript are available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov/
edgar.shtml under HSBC's company filings and will be made available on
www.hsbc.com.

Note to editors:

With some 8,400 offices in 81 countries and territories and assets of US$746
billion at 30 June 2002, the HSBC Group is one of the world's largest banking
and financial services organisations.


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange