Seven months after launching its international loan program for small and medium size businesses in the U.S., HSBC Bank USA N.A. announced Tuesday it will double the lending program to $2 billion.
HSBC officials said the bank reached its initial $1 billion target within six months of the program”™s launch last July for new business clients looking to export or expand internationally.
“The program has really struck a chord,” Steve Bottomley, HSBC group general manager and regional head of commercial banking for North America, said in the announcement. “We”™ve seen interest from a wide variety of U.S. companies and industries that are eager to seize the opportunity to tap fast-growing markets around the world to grow and compete.”
HSBC officials said the bank”™s most recent Global Connections Trade report predicts that growth for American exporters will come more from emerging markets than from developed economies in coming years. While Canada, China and Mexico will remain top export markets, Brazil and India by 2030 are expected to supplant Japan and the United Kingdom among the five largest buyers of U.S. products.
According to HSBC”™s Spotlight on U.S. Trade, a series of reports analyzing publicly traded companies in key regions nationwide, American companies with higher levels of global sales and operations had profit margins that were nearly triple those of their more domestically oriented peers during the years 2007 to 2012.
The bank”™s international loan program is available to businesses that have $3 million to $500 million in annual revenue and are focused on cross-border trading or global expansion. Only applications for new business loans are accepted and all of HSBC”™s usual credit and lending criteria apply.
The program expires at the end of this year. More information is available online at us.hsbc.com/seeit.
