HSBC has lost its place at the very top of global banking

Advertisement

The headquarters of HSBC bank in London's Canary Wharf financial district, Britain, March 11, 2016.

REUTERS/Russell Boyce/File Photo

HSBC's Canary Wharf office, its global headquarters.

HSBC is no longer one of the two most important banks in the global financial system, and has been replaced by American lender Citi, according to the latest data from the Financial Stability Board.

Advertisement

The Financial Stability Board released the latest update of its global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) list on Monday, and HSBC has fallen out of the top bucket of the board's ranking.

The FSB was set up by G20 after the financial crisis - which saw the downfall of Lehman Brothers, and the near collapse of many other institutions - as a global watchdog for the financial sector.

One of its responsibilities is to identify banks that are "too big to fail," which are lenders who are so important to the financial system that their failure would cause widespread economic damage.

The banks are split into buckets, with each corresponding to higher loss absorbency requirements based on how important to the global financial system the bank is. The higher the number, the more important the bank and the more capital it will be required to hold.

Advertisement

At its last update, HSBC and JP Morgan sat at the top of the table in bucket four out of five. However, this year, HSBC has dropped into bucket three, while Citi has jumped. JP Morgan's position is unchanged. Other fallers include Barclays, which has dropped from bucket three last year, to bucket two this year.

No banks are considered important enough to the global financial system to be put in bucket five. One bank, Wells Fargo, drops off the list completely. Wells was rocked by a scandal earlier this year, after it emerged that staff had been urged to improperly open accounts for customers for several years. Wells' CEO John Stumpf was forced to resign as a result.

You can see the FSB's full list below:

2016 GSIB list

Financial Stability Board