UTI Bank Shares

HSBC Holdings PLC
24 February 2006



                  HSBC SELLS 7.19 PER CENT OF UTI BANK SHARES

HSBC has today sold 7.19 per cent of the shares of UTI Bank Limited for a
consideration of INR6.38 billion (approximately US$142 million), taking its
stake in the Indian bank to 4.99 per cent.

The shares were sold at an average price of INR318.61 per share through the
Mumbai stock exchange.

Niall S K Booker, Group General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of HSBC in
India, said: "UTI Bank is a profitable, well-managed private bank in India, and
our purchase of shares in it has been a successful financial investment. In line
with current regulations and to take advantage of the present market strength,
we are taking the opportunity to reduce our stake and realise some of the gains
of our investment."

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 43 branches in the 22 cities of
Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Gurgaon,
Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Mysore, Nagpur, New Delhi,
Noida, Pune, Thane, Trivandrum, Vadodra and Visakhapatnam, and over 150 ATMs
across the country. HSBC has a credit card base of over one million customers in
India and is one of the leading merchant acquirers in the Indian credit card
industry.

2. The HSBC Group
The HSBC Group is one of the largest banking and financial services
organisations in the world. The Group has over 9,700 offices in 77 countries and
territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East
and Africa, serves over 110 million customers and had assets of US$1,467 billion
at 30 June 2005.

3. Advisors to HSBC
HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Private Limited were advisers to
HSBC Asia Pacific Holdings (UK) Limited on this transaction.





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