HSBC is an international bank, indeed their recognisable branding is in every major airport carriageway around the world, including Wellington of course. They have branches in 86 countries, and this is why they’re very important for anyone importing or exporting from New Zealand or living between countries. “We bank most of the large New Zealand exporters” says John, “dairy, beef, skins hides, forestry. Anything that has to go across the wharf, we are interested in it!” They’re linked to some of the world’s most famous ports – London, New York and of course Shanghai, where the bank was initially established in 1865.

John sees HSBC’s role in helping business grow as a very important one. “The most similar organisation in New Zealand is probably not a competitor bank, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We think constantly about how we are going to help grow an exporting nation. Exports make up 25% of GDP, and you need banks like us to help grow that trade. We see ourselves as helping New Zealand to grow and find new markets.”

The way they do this, is through the strength of their global networks, built up over years. “Everyone in HSBC is connected with everyone else. That’s 330 000 people on lotus notes! And so it’s rare if we can’t find some information out about a country you may be interested in doing business in. We’re able to go the extra mile because we have offices and colleagues ‘in country’. If you are a local bank in New Zealand and you don’t happen to be in India, it makes it really difficult to do anything because you’re reliant on a third party bank. Whereas if you bank with HSBC network here, then we’re an introduction to the global network.”

This is where the value of this network he speaks of begins to become clear. He gives me an example: “One of the things we’ve done in Wellington is have our offshore colleagues attend trade fairs in Hong Kong, and meet our customers from Wellington there. We arrange it so they can go straight to their trade-stand and we deal with customs for them. We also make sure they have a bunch of flowers on their stand.” When I question the flowers he explains that at trade fairs in China, this is the way to tell other people that you have good suppliers and that people like doing business with you. “It’s a little thing, but it’s the sort of little thing that we know about that makes doing business offshore easy.”

This insider info is what gives companies the confidence to step offshore. “We have a team of people here to answer questions like ‘How do I do business in country?’ ‘I don’t know the language, what does this mean?’ or even ‘where should I stay?’ Andrew Ritchie of Prospace Designz Ltd in Wanganui tells how HSBC helped set up bank accounts and web access to pay suppliers and staff in China. “It was the key to solving a complicated problem, and it has made our activities in Asia so much easier. It has simplified a very manual process by automating it.”

In New Zealand, as it has done in other countries, HSBC has positioned itself as a bank for individuals and businesses with international requirements. In the personal banking space HSBC has done this through what’s known as the ‘HSBC Premier’ proposition, which leverages the bank’s extensive international footprint – enabling customers to manage accounts around the world from a single location and providing a uniformity of service around the world.

The international focus of HSBC means that they tend to have a much broader view of what is happening financially. They look at what is going on across a number of countries, and it is why, John chuckles “you would rarely hear the HSBC economist on the radio going on and on about the New Zealand dollar going up a bit against the Australian today. We’d be more interested in what the G20 says or the impact from the China Stimulus Package. And that gives us a bigger picture of the world, and in turn what drives New Zealand.” This is also shown by the global surveys HSBC undertakes. Their most recent one showed that 85% of corporations identify working capital management as a higher priority in the last 6 months. The global economic environment and restricted access to liquidity have highlighted the importance of an efficient cash management structure.

And speaking of risk, it’s one of the topics I have for John to discuss. He’s a banker, and in these current times it’s an inevitable question, namely, how is HSBC faring? He has a good answer though. “We’ve just completed a 17 billion US new rights issue, where existing shareholders took up 94% of the shares. We are one of the most capitalised banks in the world and in tough times our core capital will be at 9.8%. We were more profitable in 2008 than the year before, and we’ve just taken the added precaution of raising more share capital. This capital raising also puts us in a strong position to take advantage of any acquisition opportunities that may arise.”

There’s another thing too. “Increasingly in these uncertain times people are looking for support with their trade through letters of credit and trade finance. This is a huge, and growing area for us at the moment because a lot of banks are taking a very cautious view of what is happening in other countries, whereas that’s very much bread and butter for us. We’re in those countries, we understand what’s going on, we have all the systems to export because of that knowledge.”

John came to his job at HSBC from another bank, and prior to that he was in chartered accounting. His law and science degrees probably mean that he could have chosen from a fairly broad range of jobs, but he chose this one. He clearly enjoys it though, speaking of his customers around the globe that “just never sleep!” Originally brought up in Hawkes Bay he came here in 1994 and is “thrilled to have married a Wellingtonian, and just would never live anywhere else now.”

Wellington is a place HSBC is committed to as well. Aside from banking Wellington property, and having enjoyed the fantastic location to do national business from for 22 years, they are also very committed to attracting inward investment here. “We know a lot of people offshore,” he says, “and often their first port of call in New Zealand is to come up here to HSBC, knock on the door and ask what’s going on. We’re perfectly set up to attract investment and introduce people, and we do that often.”

I finish the interview with John and get back into the lift for the 25-floor descent. On my way past the port that afternoon, I find myself taking an extra little look.