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It is a unique offer of services to accompany SME’s that wish to develop their business on the Chinese market, based on a partnership with Ubifrance. This body, associated with the Economic Missions, constitutes the public network of support for the international development of French companies with a presence in 120 countries. To know exactly what can be expected from the association of two big economic actors, we met Armand Amsallem, director of the regional delegation of HSBC in Marseille.
ASI : How and when was this club born?
A. Amsallem : We must firstly clarify that the HSBC network in France is the inheritance of the CCF (Commercial Credit of France) that existed since 1894, and we are HSBC since the year 2000. But these are also regional signboards, such as the Société Marseillaise de Crédit in our region, the Chaix bank in Avignon, Dupuis de Parceval in the region of Sète-Montpelier in Hérault, and many others. In the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region we have never had an organization in an administrative region, whether it be with CCF or now with HSBC. Today we have delegations ; we have three in the PACA region, in Nice, Cannes and Marseille-Provence.
The Marseille-Provence delegation that I have the pleasure of steering since 1998, covers a territory stretching from Perpignan to Montpelier, up to Avignon, then down to Salon, Aix in Provence, Toulon, Hyères, and a little beyond. On this geographic coverage we have 14 establishments. We are not everywhere, but they are quite large, with an average staff of 15 persons. These agencies are centred on private individuals and professionals, but with a strong company implantation. Our head office is situated at 522 avenue Prado. And now I am going to speak to you about Marseille Provence.
Why this country concept ? … It stems from two reflections : firstly, because in France there are approximately 50.000 exporting companies, which represents a rather weak percentage, maybe 5 % of SME’s. There is a very strong will, both of the authorities and companies, to turn towards international markets. There is not a single company in our region that doesn’t wonder about its possibility of exchange or purchase, to sell abroad or have relations with a partner in another country. The Authorities implemented a system that gave birth to “Ubifrance”, which is the agency for the international development of French companies.
The second point is the worldwide implantation of HSBC, because today there is no equivalent implantation of a commercial bank with such a variety of customers as we have in France. China interests a lot of people and a lot of Frenchmen, notably regional and local SME’s. That is why we have a Frenchman on the spot to assure the interface between the French companies and our local colleagues to facilitate contacts.
This evidence gave us the idea to offer this " County Club " concept to our customers and all others who are interested, to facilitate their contacts, local operations, and even open local accounts. These customer services are the same with HSBC France, HSBC UK, or HSBC China. We began by creating a UK club, which was logical due to the previous history and the position of the bank in Great Britain (26 % of the market), while taking into account the interest that this territory represents for our companies. We have just created a “China Club " together with Ubifrance with whom we have signed a partnership, and gradually we shall create others. The next one, which particularly interests Marseille, is Algeria, where we are implanting HSBC, firstly with the recruitment of about fifty employees and the perspective of creating agencies in the main cities of the country over five years. The Algerian implantation was confided by the group to HSBC France ; it is true that the relation between Algeria and France is more natural.
ASI : Will you have a large responsibility in this development, considering your "Mediterranean" position?
A.A. : Absolutely ! One of our experts in " payment cash management " is going to join Algeria, voluntarily, and there will naturally be close links with Marseille. We are going to participate in a forum, which will take place next October or November on the Mediterranean and we shall invite our managerial team. The director will be a French-Algerian, the sales manager is a Frenchman who was responsible for setting-up in the Lebanon (he came to the Marseille’s World Trade Center during the conference on Algeria, organized by president Barrade). There will certainly be a very strong synergy between this establishment in Algeria and the Marseille’s delegation, because there is a Mediterranean interest in which we intend to be present.
To resume, the “Country Clubs " benefit from our worldwide implantation because we have a concrete approach, notably in Asia. We must take into account that at present, the local tissue tends to import rather than export. Among our clientele there are many companies which import from Asia, and since we are HSBC we often notice that the supplier is a customer of HSBC. It is very interesting to have the same bank at both ends of the chain; it offers us a considerable source of information, easier communication and flexibility for transfers, which accelerate the collections and payments.
Furthermore, there are the local contacts. A customer who wishes to establish a partnership with a company within its sector or in a complementary one, can submit his project that we send to our local colleagues. They will look to see if they have a company corresponding to the required profile and the contact can be established. We remind you that the club is open to everybody, and in order to communicate on these subjects, we intend to create events concerning China together with Ubifrance. We have already done so for the UK in Aix in Provence, it was a big success. In June we shall receive the economic councillor of Peking in the Var, in Toulon or in Brignoles, and we shall organise an event in Marseille in October. We are constructing an important action of communication with Ubifrance, which will include several essential subjects of international business.
Nota :
The HSBC bank was created by Scotsmen in 1865 to serve the Asian counters. In Shanghai there is still a Victorian building of the banks first office. It is the purchase of the Midland Bank, that was an important bank in Great Britain and in the world, which spurred HSBC. The bank is now implanting strongly in China where it has just created a company with a capital of 8 billion. With 3.000 employees, and 35 agencies, today the HSBC Bank Company Limited is the most important foreign bank that has just laid down its statutes in China. The president of the group plans to recruit more than one thousand additional employees by the end of 2007, to support developing projects. It employs 25.000 persons in Brazil over a little more than one thousand selling points, 4 million private customers and 200.000 company customers.