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 December 31, 2014 and 2013 which are consolidated on our balance sheets. Assets and liabilities exclude intercompany balances that eliminate in consolidation.



	December 31, 2014				December 31, 2013
	Consolidated Assets		Consolidated Liabilities		Consolidated Assets		Consolidated Liabilities
	(in millions)
Asset-backed commercial paper conduit:
Interest bearing deposits with banks	$	—	$	—	$	5	$	—
Securities held-to-maturity	—		—		200		—
Other assets	—		—		45		—
Interest, taxes and other liabilities	—		—		—		3
Subtotal	—		—		250		3
Low income housing limited liability partnership:
Other assets	380		—		457		—
Long-term debt	—		92		—		92
Interest, taxes and other liabilities	—		75		—		90
Subtotal	380		167		457		182
Total	$	380	$	167	$	707	$	185

Asset-backed conduit During 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 was no longer transacting new business and certain Bryant Park customer transactions were refinanced by a commercial paper conduit consolidated by HSBC Bank plc. Bryant Park continued to exist but only to fund select legacy assets it continued to hold. Upon completion of the restructure in 2013, HSBC Bank USA became the primary beneficiary of Bryant Park at which time Bryant Park became included in our consolidated results. During the fourth quarter of 2014, the remaining legacy assets were sold and, as a result, the Bryant Park facility was closed.

Low income housing limited liability partnership In 2009, all low income housing investments held by us at the time 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 are not consolidated because we are not the primary beneficiary. The following table provides additional information on these unconsolidated VIEs, including the variable interests held by us and our maximum exposure to loss arising from our involvements in these VIEs, as of December 31, 2014 and 2013:



	Variable Interests Held Classified as Assets		Variable Interests Held Classified as Liabilities		Total Assets in Unconsolidated VIEs		Maximum Exposure to Loss
	(in millions)
At December 31, 2014
Asset-backed commercial paper conduits	$	29	$	—	$	10,984	$	2,685
Structured note vehicles	2,841		7		5,867		5,860
Low income housing partnerships	44		39		141		44
Total	$	2,914	$	46	$	16,992	$	8,589
At December 31, 2013
Asset-backed commercial paper conduits	$	417	$	—	$	17,044	$	2,560
Structured note vehicles	2,272		55		6,190		5,888
Total	$	2,689	$	55	$	23,234	$	8,448

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 Regency, a multi-seller ABCP conduit consolidated by our affiliate. Customers sell financial assets, such as trade receivables, to Regency, which funds the purchases by issuing short-term highly-rated commercial paper collateralized by the assets acquired. We, along with other financial institutions, provide liquidity facilities to Regency in the form of lines of credit or asset purchase commitments. These liquidity facilities 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. 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 Regency. We also do not provide the majority of the liquidity facilities to Regency. We have no ownership interests in, perform no administrative duties for, and do not service any of the assets held by Regency. We are not the primary beneficiary and do not consolidate Regency. Credit risk related to the liquidity facilities provided is managed by subjecting these facilities to our normal underwriting and risk management processes. The $2,685 million 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. 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 derivatives wrapping the structured notes. 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. In other situations, we hold credit default swaps with structured note issuing 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. We record all investments in, and derivative contracts with, unconsolidated structured note vehicles at fair value on our consolidated balance sheet.

Low income housing partnerships Separately from the low income housing LLP discussed above, we invest as a limited partner in low-income housing partnerships that operate qualified affordable housing projects and generate tax benefits, including federal low-income housing tax credits, for investors. The partnerships are deemed to be VIEs because they do not have sufficient equity investment at risk and are structured with non-substantive voting rights. We are not the primary beneficiary of the VIEs and do not consolidate them.

Our investment in low-income housing partnerships are recorded in other assets on the consolidated balance sheet. As a practical expedient, we amortize the investment in proportion to the allocated tax credits under the proportional amortization method of accounting. The maximum exposure to loss shown in the table above represents our recorded investment.

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 5, "Securities," and Note 27, "Fair Value Measurements," and, therefore, are not disclosed in this note to avoid redundancy.