BUFFALO, N.Y. — HSBC cut the ribbon Wednesday on its new Buffalo headquarters at Larkinville.
The move brings all of its approximately 1,500 local employees under one roof.
HSBC was once very prominent in the Buffalo area, with its name adorning the city's tallest building and its downtown sports arena as well having numerous branches around Western New York.
HSBC exited the retail banking business several years ago and according to its U.S. and Americas CEO Michael Roberts, the financial institution has plans to reenter that market.
"It wasn't as profitable and didn't fit our business model," Roberts told WGRZ-TV.
HSBC despite a less public presence, however, never really went away from Buffalo. Its operations here centered on a lot behind-the-scenes type of banking and much of it on the international level.
"A lot of the dollar transactions that HSBC does globally come through Buffalo." said Roberts. "Every day we clear about three to four trillion dollars worth of payments and that's done here. We have a lot of our technology group here and we have other various groups that do compliance and various types of control functions which are very are a very very important part of what we do."
Workers will now be consolidated on four floors of newly renovated space inside a vintage 1893 building at 239 Van Rensselaer formerly leased by KeyCorp.
Roberts also noted that employees will "come and go", under a hybrid model where workers come into the office two or three days a week.
"We have people that have been working with us for 25-30 years and they have great expertise and a great skill set for us that we're going to continue to utilize and employ for a very long time," Roberts said.