Variable Interest Entities

In the ordinary course of business, we have organized special purpose entities (“SPEs”) primarily to structure financial products to meet our clients' investment needs, to facilitate clients to access and raise financing from capital markets and to securitize financial assets held to meet our own funding needs. For disclosure purposes, we aggregate SPEs based on the purpose, risk characteristics and business activities of the SPEs. A SPE is a VIE if it lacks sufficient equity investment at risk to finance its activities without additional subordinated financial support or, as a group, the holders of the equity investment at risk lack either a) the power through voting or similar rights to direct the activities of the entity that most significantly impacts the entity's economic performance; or b) the obligation to absorb the entity's expected losses, the right to receive the expected residual returns, or both.

Variable Interest Entities We consolidate VIEs in which we hold a controlling financial interest as evidenced by the power to direct the activities of a VIE that most significantly impact its economic performance and the obligation to absorb losses of, or the right to receive benefits from, the VIE that could be potentially significant to the VIE and therefore are deemed to be the primary beneficiary. We take into account our entire involvement in a VIE (explicit or implicit) in identifying variable interests that individually or in the aggregate could be significant enough to warrant our designation as the primary beneficiary and hence require us to consolidate the VIE or otherwise require us to make appropriate disclosures. We consider our involvement to be significant where we, among other things, (i) provide liquidity put options or other liquidity facilities to support the VIE's debt obligations; (ii) enter into derivative contracts to absorb the risks and benefits from the VIE or from the assets held by the VIE; (iii) provide a financial guarantee that covers assets held or liabilities issued; (iv) design, organize and structure the transaction; and (v) retain a financial or servicing interest in the VIE.

We are required to evaluate whether to consolidate a VIE when we first become involved and on an ongoing basis. In almost all cases, a qualitative analysis of our involvement in the entity provides sufficient evidence to determine whether we are the primary beneficiary. In rare cases, a more detailed analysis to quantify the extent of variability to be absorbed by each variable interest holder is required to determine the primary beneficiary.

Consolidated VIEs The following table summarizes assets and liabilities related to our consolidated VIEs as of September 30, 2013 and December 31, 2012 which are consolidated on our balance sheet. Assets and liabilities exclude intercompany balances that eliminate in consolidation:



	September 30, 2013				December 31, 2012
	Consolidated Assets		Consolidated Liabilities		Consolidated Assets		Consolidated Liabilities
	(in millions)
Asset-backed commercial paper conduit:
Interest bearing deposits with banks	$	5	$	—	$	—	$	—
Held-to-maturity securities	208		—		—		—
Other assets	2		—		—		—
Other liabilities	—		3		—		—
Subtotal	$	215	$	3	$	—	$	—
Low income housing limited liability partnership:
Other assets	477		—		533		—
Long term debt	—		92		—		92
Other liabilities	—		96		—		152
Subtotal	$	477	$	188	$	533	$	244
Total	$	692	$	191	$	533	$	244

Asset-backed conduit During the first quarter of 2013, HSBC decided to restructure certain of its asset-backed commercial paper conduit programs to have only one asset-backed commercial paper conduit providing securitized financing to HSBC clients globally. As part of this initiative, our commercial paper conduit otherwise known as Bryant Park is no longer transacting new business and certain existing Bryant Park customer transactions have been refinanced by an existing commercial paper conduit currently consolidated by HSBC Bank plc. Bryant Park continues to exist but only to fund select legacy assets it currently holds. Upon completion of the restructure in May 2013, HSBC Bank USA became the primary beneficiary of Bryant Park at which time Bryant Park became included in our consolidated results.

Low income housing limited liability partnership In 2009, all low income housing investments held by us were transferred to a Limited Liability Partnership (“LLP”) in exchange for debt and equity while a third party invested cash for an equity interest that is mandatorily redeemable at a future date. The LLP was created in order to ensure the utilization of future tax benefits from these low income housing tax projects. The LLP was deemed to be a VIE as it does not have sufficient equity investment at risk to finance its activities. Upon entering into this transaction, we concluded that we are the primary beneficiary of the LLP due to the nature of our continuing involvement and, as a result, consolidate the LLP and report the equity interest issued to the third party investor in other liabilities and the assets of the LLP in other assets on our consolidated balance sheet. The investments held by the LLP represent equity investments in the underlying low income housing partnerships for which the LLP applies equity-method accounting. The LLP does not consolidate the underlying partnerships because it does not have the power to direct the activities of the partnerships that most significantly impact the economic performance of the partnerships.

Unconsolidated VIEs We also have variable interests in other VIEs that were not consolidated at September 30, 2013 and December 31, 2012 because we were not the primary beneficiary. The following table provides additional information on those unconsolidated VIEs, the variable interests held by us and our maximum exposure to loss arising from our involvements in those VIEs as of September 30, 2013 and December 31, 2012:



	Variable Interests Held Classified as Assets		Variable Interests Held Classified as Liabilities		Total Assets in Unconsolidated VIEs		Maximum Exposure to Loss
	(in millions)
September 30, 2013
Asset-backed commercial paper conduits	$	—	$	—	$	16,456	$	2,216
Structured note vehicles	1,712		68		6,365		6,253
Total	$	1,712	$	68	$	22,821	$	8,469
December 31, 2012
Asset-backed commercial paper conduits	$	—	$	—	$	16,104	$	2,212
Structured note vehicles	2,117		154		7,055		6,893
Total	$	2,117	$	154	$	23,159	$	9,105

Information on the types of variable interest entities with which we are involved, the nature of our involvement and the variable interests held in those entities is presented below.

Asset-backed commercial paper ("ABCP") conduits Separately from the Bryant Park facility discussed above, we provide liquidity facilities to a number of multi-seller and single-seller ABCP conduits sponsored by HSBC affiliates and by third parties. These conduits support the financing needs of customers by facilitating the customers' access to commercial paper markets.

Customers sell financial assets, such as trade receivables, to ABCP conduits, which fund the purchases by issuing short-term highly-rated commercial paper collateralized by the assets acquired. In a multi-seller conduit, any number of companies may be originating and selling assets to the conduit whereas a single-seller conduit acquires assets from a single company. We, along with other financial institutions, provide liquidity facilities to ABCP conduits in the form of lines of credit or asset purchase commitments. Liquidity facilities provided to multi-seller conduits support transactions associated with a specific seller of assets to the conduit and we would only be required to provide support in the event of certain triggers associated with those transactions and assets. Liquidity facilities provided to single-seller conduits are not identified with specific transactions or assets and we would be required to provide support upon occurrence of certain triggers that generally affect the conduit as a whole. Our obligations are generally pari passu with those of other institutions that also provide liquidity support to the same conduit or for the same transactions. We do not provide any program-wide credit enhancements to ABCP conduits.

Each seller of assets to an ABCP conduit typically provides credit enhancements in the form of asset overcollateralization and, therefore, bears the risk of first loss related to the specific assets transferred. We do not transfer our own assets to the conduits. We do not provide the majority of the liquidity facilities to any of these ABCP conduits. We have no ownership interests in, perform no administrative duties for, and do not service any of the assets held by the conduits. We are not the primary beneficiary and do not consolidate any of the ABCP conduits to which we provide liquidity facilities. Credit risk related to the liquidity facilities provided is managed by subjecting these facilities to our normal underwriting and risk management processes. The $2.2 billion maximum exposure to loss presented in the table above represents the maximum amount of loans and asset purchases we could be required to fund under the liquidity facilities. The maximum loss exposure is estimated assuming the facilities are fully drawn and the underlying collateralized assets are in default with zero recovery value.

Structured note vehicles Our involvement in structured note vehicles includes derivatives such as interest rate and currency swaps and investments in the vehicles' debt instruments. With respect to several of these VIEs, we hold variable interests in the form of total return swaps entered into in connection with the transfer of certain assets to the VIEs. In these transactions, we transferred financial assets from our trading portfolio to the VIEs and entered into total return swaps under which we receive the total return on the transferred assets and pay a market rate of return. The transfers of assets in these transactions do not qualify as sales under the applicable accounting literature and are accounted for as secured borrowings. Accordingly, the transferred assets continue to be recognized as trading assets on our balance sheet and the funds received are recorded as liabilities in long-term debt. As of September 30, 2013, we recorded approximately $30 million of trading assets and $33 million of trading liabilities on our balance sheet as a result of “failed sale” accounting treatment for certain transfers of financial assets. As of December 31, 2012, we recorded approximately $140 million of trading assets and $147 million of trading liabilities on our balance sheet as a result of “failed sale” accounting treatment for certain transfers of financial assets. The financial assets and financial liabilities were not legally ours and we have no control over the financial assets which are restricted solely to satisfy the liability.

In addition to our variable interests, we also hold credit default swaps with these structured note VIEs under which we receive credit protection on specified reference assets in exchange for the payment of a premium. Through these derivatives, the VIEs assume the credit risk associated with the reference assets which are then passed on to the holders of the debt instruments they issue. Because they create rather than absorb variability, the credit default swaps we hold are not considered variable interests. In limited circumstances, we entered into total return swaps taking on the risks and benefits of certain structured notes issued by unconsolidated VIEs. The same risks and benefits are passed on to third party entities through back-end total return swaps. We earn a spread for facilitating the transaction. Our maximum exposure to loss is the notional amount of the structured notes covered by the swap. The maximum exposure to loss will occur in the unlikely scenario where the value of the structured notes is reduced to zero and, at the same time, the counterparty of the back-end swap defaults with zero recovery.

We record all investments in, and derivative contracts with, unconsolidated structured note vehicles at fair value on our consolidated balance sheet. Our maximum exposure to loss is limited to the recorded amounts of these instruments or, where applicable, the notional amount of the derivatives wrapping the structured notes.

Beneficial interests issued by third-party sponsored securitization entities We hold certain beneficial interests such as mortgage-backed securities issued by third party sponsored securitization entities which may be considered VIEs. The investments are transacted at arm's-length and decisions to invest are based on a credit analysis of the underlying collateral assets or the issuer. We are a passive investor in these issuers and do not have the power to direct the activities of these issuers. As such, we do not consolidate these securitization entities. Additionally, we do not have other involvements in servicing or managing the collateral assets or provide financial or liquidity support to these issuers which potentially give rise to risk of loss exposure. These investments are an integral part of the disclosure in Note 4, “Securities” and Note 19, “Fair Value Measurements” and, therefore, are not disclosed in this note to avoid redundancy.