Facts, not rumours.

Each entry links to its sources. In order of preference:

1. Official records: regulators’ notices and releases (FCA, PRA, US DOJ, CFTC, SEC, FINMA, ASIC and others), court judgments, parliamentary reports and HSBC’s own filings, labelled “Official record”.
2. Established news organisations and investigative consortia such as Reuters, Bloomberg, the ICIJ and OCCRP, for events without an official record or to add context.
3. Specialist and trade publications, used only alongside the above.

We don’t use anonymous social posts, forums or unverified claims as sources for facts.

A settlement isn’t always an admission. Every case states whether HSBC admitted wrongdoing, settled without admitting it, contested it, or won. Where HSBC gave a response, we include it. Where a court ruled in HSBC’s favour, as in the South Korean criminal case, we report that too.

Amounts are given in the currency the authority used, at the figure it announced. We don’t convert or add up different currencies into a misleading “grand total”. Where sources differ, we use the official figure.

We name individuals only when they were senior, their case was central to action against HSBC, and the outcome is on the public record from a court or prosecutor. Charges are charges, convictions are convictions, and overturned convictions are reported as overturned. We don’t name junior staff, and we don’t keep old, spent convictions without strong reason.

Stories from the public are personal accounts, clearly labelled. A person reads every one before publication. We remove names of staff and others, account details and anything identifying, and we don’t publish allegations of crime by named people. We may ask the writer to support key facts.

Headlines and summaries describe what the sources show. Where we give our own view, such as why branch closures matter, it’s labelled as our view.