HSBC opens new headquarters in Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. — HSBC broke ground on its new Buffalo headquarters in Larkinville on Wednesday.

This move brings together all of its approximately 1,500 local employees under one roof.

HSBC was once very prominent in the Buffalo area, with its name adorning the city’s tallest building and its downtown sports arena, as well as numerous branches throughout Western New York.

HSBC withdrew from the retail banking sector several years ago and, according to its CEO for the United States and Americas, Michael Roberts, the financial institution is considering re-entering this market.

“It wasn’t as profitable and didn’t fit our business model,” Roberts told WGRZ-TV.

HSBC, despite a less public presence, has never really left Buffalo. Its operations here were centered on a type of behind-the-scenes banking and largely on an international level.

“A large portion of HSBC’s dollar transactions around the world go through Buffalo.” » said Roberts. “Every day we make payments worth about three to four trillion dollars and it’s done here. We have a large part of our technology group here and we have other various groups that take care of compliance and various types of control functions that are a very, very important part of what we do.

Workers will now be clustered across four floors of newly renovated space inside an 1893 building at 239 Van Rensselaer, formerly leased by KeyCorp.

Roberts also noted that employees are “coming and going,” part of a hybrid model where workers come to the office two or three days a week.

“We have people who have been with us for 25 to 30 years and they have a lot of expertise and a skill set that we’re going to continue to use and employ for a very long time,” Roberts said.