What is HSBC's technology stack?
HSBC runs about 9,000 applications, most of them on cloud, and is retiring a third of the estate. On the annual results call in February 2026 chief executive Georges Elhedery said 'I think we are quite mature on Cloud', that about 3,000 applications are flagged as non-strategic for demise by 2028 and that more than 1,100 were demised in 2025. The bank uses more than one cloud: its June 2026 release counts more than 600 HSBC applications already running on Google Cloud, and AWS said in November 2025 that the PayMe wallet had moved its entire platform to AWS. On the AI layer, the chief technology officer is building a central AI platform that gives colleagues access to a range of models, with Mistral AI models self-hosted on HSBC's internal systems and Gemini models through Google Cloud, while Microsoft said in July 2026 that HSBC had committed to 200,000 Copilot seats. Elhedery said 31,000 engineers have coding assistants and that technology is about 20% of costs. HSBC has not published its split between cloud providers or the core banking systems it runs by market.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Data as of Nov 11, 2026 · HSBC profile updated Nov 11, 2026 · 25 sources cited on this page · 141 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
What are the layers of HSBC's technology stack?
As HSBC, its executives and its named vendors describe them. HSBC has not published an architecture diagram.
| Layer | What is on the record | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application estate | About 9,000 applications, of which about 3,000 are flagged as non-strategic for demise by 2028; more than 1,100 were demised in 2025 | Georges Elhedery, annual results call | February 2026[1] |
| Cloud position | 'I think we are quite mature on Cloud': after a 'Cloud-first' phase the majority of applications sit on cloud, and hosting is now decided application by application, with portability and resilience in view | Georges Elhedery, annual results call | February 2026[1] |
| Google Cloud | More than 600 HSBC applications already running on Google Cloud; Gemini models and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform added under a multi-year partnership | HSBC release | June 2026[2] |
| Data warehouse | A UK data-center migration to BigQuery served as the template: schema first, then the reporting load with metadata tagging and reconciliation, then historical data | Google Cloud customer page | Undated[7] |
| Mobile wallet | PayMe, the Hong Kong mobile wallet HSBC launched in 2017, migrated its entire platform to AWS, according to AWS; over 3.2 million users | AWS release | November 25, 2025[3] |
| Model layer | A central AI platform that colleagues use to access a range of models; Mistral AI models self-hosted on HSBC's internal technology systems; Gemini models through Google Cloud | HSBC releases | December 2025 to June 2026[4][5][2] |
| Employee tools | Microsoft said HSBC committed to 200,000 Copilot seats; HSBC's own Productivity Suite tool is available to around 85% of colleagues | Microsoft earnings call; HSBC annual report | July 2026; February 2026[6][8] |
| Software engineering | 31,000 engineers enabled with coding assistants; unit testing 60% faster and vulnerability patching five times faster | Georges Elhedery, annual results call | February 2026[1] |
| Agent orchestration | Promenaut runs business case evaluation and pre-coding steps in the software delivery lifecycle; HSBC has invested and chief AI officer David Rice joins the board | Finextra | September 2026[9] |
| Client connectivity | HSBCnio offers a suite of APIs, a software development kit and a sandbox; clients' own AI tools reach authorised account and transaction information through HSBC's Model Context Protocol | HSBC; Finextra | September 2026[10][11] |
| Distributed ledger | Tokenised deposits and payments in four markets, including the UK; the UK Treasury selected HSBC's distributed ledger technology as preferred platform for its digital gilt pilot | Georges Elhedery, annual results call | February 2026[1] |
| Research institute | AI & Emerging Technology Institute in Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis, set to begin operations in early 2027: AI safety, AI-enabled fraud detection and engineering optimisation, post-quantum cryptography and blockchain, with HKUST as anchor academic partner | HSBC release | November 2, 2026[12] |
Who runs technology at HSBC and how much does it spend?
Stuart Riley joined HSBC as Group Chief Information Officer in February 2024 and leads the bank's technology strategy; he was previously Co-Chief Information Officer of Citi. In March 2026, when HSBC named its first chief AI officer, it also widened the remit of chief technology officer Mario Shamtani to 'modernising core platforms, building a central AI platform colleagues can use to access a range of models, and leading key strategic partnerships'.[13][4]
On cost, Elhedery told analysts in February 2026 that 'you could broadly assume that 20% is the cost that we're spending on technology'. He said retiring legacy and non-strategic applications, which consume maintenance costs, patching costs and licence fees, frees capacity to invest, and that the biggest investment in new technology 'is definitely going into Generative AI'.[1]
On people, eFinancialCareers reported on February 25, 2026 that HSBC said it had 'invested' in 1,800 technology full-time employees over the previous year, while cutting other roles.[14]
What is not on the record: HSBC has not published how its applications divide between cloud providers and its own data centers, which core banking systems it runs in each market, or a total technology headcount.[1]
What does the HSBC profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the HSBC AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Nov 11, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 36 dated moves, 21 use cases and 68 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI coding assistants | 31,000 engineers enabled; 60% faster unit testing and five times faster vulnerability patching in February 2026; HSBC's AI page cites 20,000 developers and a 15% coding-time efficiency. | In production | [1][15] |
| Mistral self-hosted models | Multi-year access to Mistral's commercial models to improve the internal productivity platform, financial analysis of document-heavy lending, multilingual translation and faster development cycles. | Rolling out | [5] |
| Google Cloud programme: wealth, decision assistant, regulatory procedures | Expansion of an AI decision assistant already cutting admin and meeting-prep time from hours to minutes for thousands of users; codifying regulatory procedures into an AI structure for bankers. | Rolling out | [16] |
| Promenaut agent orchestration | Agents run business-case evaluation and pre-coding steps in the software delivery lifecycle with permissions, audit trails and human-in-the-loop controls. | In production | [9] |
| HSBCnio with Model Context Protocol access | Clients' own AI tools reach authorised account and transaction data; 'Ask HSBC' planned. | Announced | [10] |
| Dynamic Risk Assessment transaction monitoring (Google AML AI) | Co-developed with Google and piloted in 2021; HSBC reports about 980 million transactions checked monthly, two to four times more financial crime found, 60% fewer false positives and analysis time cut from weeks to days. | In production | [17] |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | HSBC committed to 200,000 seats, according to Microsoft's CEO on 29 July 2026. | Rolling out | [6] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2, 2026 | AI & Emerging Technology Institute announced in Hong Kong | At the start of Hong Kong FinTech Week HSBC announces plans for a global AI & Emerging Technology Institute in Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis, set to begin operations in early 2027, with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) as anchor academic partner; initial work covers AI upskilling, AI safety, AI-enabled fraud detection and engineering optimisation, post-quantum cryptography and blockchain. | [12] |
| Oct 9, 2026 | AI-agent micropayment test with Ant Digital | HSBC's Tokenised Deposit Service and its MCP interface for real-time risk checks are used in a technical verification, not a commercial launch. | [18] |
| Sep 29, 2026 | HSBCnio launches at Sibos | A digital banking solution for corporate and institutional clients whose Model Context Protocol lets clients' own AI tools read authorised account and transaction data; 'Ask HSBC' is planned. | [10] |
| Sep 22, 2026 | Promenaut agent orchestration goes live | Business-case evaluation and pre-coding steps in the software delivery lifecycle run on the platform, with permissions, audit trails and human-in-the-loop controls; HSBC has invested and chief AI officer Rice joins the board. | [9] |
| Jul 29, 2026 | Microsoft: HSBC committed to 200,000 Copilot seats | On Microsoft's fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 call, Satya Nadella names HSBC among large deployments, alongside NHS England and KPMG. | [6] |
| Jun 17, 2026 | Multi-year partnership with Google Cloud and DeepMind | More than 200 new AI use cases over two years, with Gemini models and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform; first areas are hyper-personalised wealth support, financial-crime risk management (twice-as-fast intervention across nearly one billion monitored transactions a month) and an AI decision assistant for frontline staff; prioritised projects each estimated to return more than US$100m. | [16][19] |
| Mar 27, 2026 | First live agentic transaction in Hong Kong, with HSBC | Mastercard completes an AI-agent ride booking using Agent Pay, conducted with HSBC and DBS Hong Kong, using tokenised credentials authenticated by Payment Passkeys. | [20] |
| Mar 23, 2026 | First chief AI officer appointed | David Rice from 1 April; CTO Mario Shamtani to build a central AI platform and lead strategic partnerships. Reuters notes the appointment comes as the bank seeks cost cuts and links AI to its return-on-tangible-equity target of above 17% for 2026-2028. | [4][21][22] |
| Feb 25, 2026 | Full-year 2025 results: generative AI is the biggest technology investment | Three workstreams: AI for every colleague (85% enabled, 31,000 engineers, five times faster vulnerability patching, 60% faster unit testing), end-to-end process re-engineering (50 processes) and customer experience. The deck reports 1,000+ relationship managers on a Wealth AI platform and a Banker Assist tool for about 1,400 customer-facing colleagues; the annual report counts more than 100 active gen-AI use cases. | [1][23][8][24] |
| Dec 1, 2025 | Multi-year partnership with Mistral AI | Access to Mistral's commercial models and future developments, self-hosted on HSBC's own systems, to improve an AI-powered productivity platform used by colleagues; future focus includes credit and lending, onboarding, and fraud and anti-money-laundering checks. | [5][25] |
| Jun 10, 2024 | HSBC describes Dynamic Risk Assessment, built with Google | HSBC says it checks about 980 million transactions a month for financial crime with the AI system it co-developed with Google (piloted 2021): two to four times more financial crime found, 60% fewer false positives, and processing time for billions of transactions cut from several weeks to a few days. | [17] |
Which cloud providers does HSBC use?
At least two are named in primary sources. HSBC's June 2026 release says more than 600 of its applications already run on Google Cloud, and AWS announced in November 2025 that PayMe, HSBC's Hong Kong wallet, had migrated its entire platform to AWS. HSBC has not published the split between providers.
How many applications does HSBC run?
About 9,000, chief executive Georges Elhedery said on the annual results call in February 2026. About 3,000 of them are flagged as non-strategic and due to be demised by 2028, and more than 1,100 were demised in 2025, which he said frees investment capacity for new technology.
Which AI models does HSBC use?
Several. HSBC's December 2025 release says Mistral AI models are self-hosted on the bank's internal technology systems, the June 2026 Google Cloud partnership adds Gemini models and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and the chief technology officer is building a central AI platform so colleagues can access a range of models.
How much does HSBC spend on technology?
HSBC does not publish a single technology budget. Asked in February 2026, Elhedery said analysts could broadly assume that 20% of costs go on technology, and that generative AI is where the biggest investment in new technology is going. He gave no figure for AI alone.
Who is HSBC's chief information officer?
Stuart Riley, who joined as Group Chief Information Officer in February 2024 after serving as Co-Chief Information Officer of Citi. Mario Shamtani is chief technology officer, with a remit widened in March 2026 to modernising core platforms and building the central AI platform.
- Annual Results 2025 Presentation to Investors and Analysts - Transcript
- HSBC and Google Cloud announce transformative AI banking partnership (media release)
- Amazon Web Services Announces PayMe by HSBC's Migration to AWS, Accelerating Digital Payment Innovation in Hong Kong
- HSBC announces David Rice as its first Chief AI Officer
- HSBC and Mistral AI join forces to accelerate AI adoption across global bank
- Microsoft Fiscal Year 2026 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call transcript
- HSBC Customer Hub (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-11)
- Annual Report and Accounts 2025
- Agent workflow platform Promenaut goes live at HSBC
- HSBC launches HSBCnio digital banking solution for businesses
- HSBC rolls out new digital transaction banking platform
- HSBC announces 'AI and Emerging Technology Institute' at Hong Kong Fintech week
- Biography: Stuart Riley, Group Chief Information Officer
- HSBC has both empowered its people with AI and hired 1,800 technologists
- Transforming HSBC with AI | HSBC and Digital (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-05)
- HSBC and Google Cloud Announce Transformative AI Banking Partnership
- Harnessing the power of AI to fight financial crime
- Ant Digital Technologies and HSBC announce successful AI agent micropayment technical verification test
- HSBC Expects Over $100 Million Gains From Using Google AI Tools
- Mastercard Completes its First Live Agentic Transaction in Hong Kong
- HSBC appoints first chief AI officer as it seeks cost cuts
- HSBC introduces AI role to the C-suite
- Annual Results 2025 Presentation to Investors and Analysts
- HSBC names generative AI a leading investment area
- HSBC to adopt Mistral AI foundational models across the bank
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