French Savings Joint Venture

HSBC Holdings PLC
02 February 2006



    AXA FRANCE, BNP PARIBAS, HSBC FRANCE AND SOCIETE GENERALE CREATE A JOINT
                PLATFORM FOR EMPLOYEE SAVINGS PLAN ADMINISTRATION
                                        
Axa Epargne Entreprise, BNP Paribas Epargne & Retraite Entreprises (BNP Paribas
ERE), HSBC Epargne Entreprise (HSBC EE) and Societe Generale are to create a
joint platform for employee savings plan administration in France.

The joint venture, a simplified limited company (Societe Anonyme Simplifiee),
with a capital of €213,607 on 1 January 2006, will be known as Service Epargne
Entreprises. Ownership of its capital will be updated every year and will vary
according to the volume of business given to it by each of the partners. It was
as follows on 1 January 2006:

- 11.7% by Axa Epargne Entreprise,
- 33.5% by BNP Paribas ERE,
- 18.1% by HSBC EE,
- 36.7% by Societe Generale.

This platform is set to become the leading player in employee savings account
administration in France, with more than four million accounts under management
and over 300 employees. This joint venture will allow the four partners to take
advantage of excellent growth opportunities offered by the employee savings
market. The aim is to provide a growing number of companies and employees with a
comprehensive range of high quality services, to support the expansion of
employee savings and to provide a centralised account management service in
association with several fund management companies.

The platform will allow the pooling of administration resources while at the
same time allowing the partners to continue to distribute own-branded products
to their own clients. Partners will be charged for the administration services
received.

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the joint venture will be Nicole
Roosz-Longobardi, with Xavier Colomer appointed as Deputy Chief Executive
Officer and Veronique Raby-Lemoine as Chief Operating Officer (HSBC).

Notes to editors:

The Axa group
The Axa group is a world leader in financial protection. Axa operates a
geographically diversified set of businesses, with a focus on the markets of
Western Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. Axa reported €935
billion in assets under management at 30 June 2005, and revenues of €67 billion
and underlying earnings of €2,640 million in fiscal 2004. For the first six
months of 2005, Axa posted revenues of €37 billion and underlying earnings of
€1,761 million under IFRS.

Corporate retirement savings at Axa France
Axa France offers its 9 million individual, professional and business customers
a range of insurance, savings and support solutions, as well as banking
services, geared to their needs. In 2005, Axa France became the number one
player in the French corporate retirement savings market, with over €20 billion
in assets under management (€14.8 billion in collective retirement savings and
€6.7 billion in employee savings) and 20,000 business customers. Its offering is
marketed by 12,000 sales staff (general agents, sales employees, brokers, etc.).
AXA France's corporate retirement savings team combines the various deferred
remuneration systems available to design a suitable solution, irrespective of
the size and requirements of the businesses and their senior management teams.
Once systems are implemented, AXA France's teams provide support to employees
and the business in the form of a steady stream of information and follow-up.

BNP Paribas:
BNP Paribas (www.bnpparibas.com) is a European leader in banking and financial
services. It also has a large and steadily growing presence in the United States
and strong positions in Asia. BNP Paribas is the largest bank in the euro zone
in terms of net earnings (2004). It has an extensive international network with
offices in over 85 countries and more than 105,000 employees, including almost
80,000 in Europe. BNP Paribas has key positions in its three core businesses:
Corporate and investment banking, Asset management & services and Retail
banking.

BNP Paribas Epargne & Retraite Entreprises:
BNP Paribas Epargne & Retraite Entreprises, a subsidiary of the BNP Paribas
Group, is the first player in the French market to offer a global approach
encompassing employee savings, employee share ownership, pensions and group
health and disability insurance. At 31 December 2005, BNP Paribas Epargne &
Retraite Entreprises managed almost €12.3 billion of assets for 15,000 corporate
clients.

HSBC Holdings plc:
HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the
world. It has over 110 million customers worldwide served by more than 9,700 
offices in 77 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific, the 
Americas, the Middle East and Africa. It had USD1,467 billion in assets at 
30 June 2005. HSBC is "the world's local bank". For more information, please 
see www.hsbc.com.

HSBC Epargne Entreprise
HSBC Epargne Entreprise is the wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC France
specialised in corporate savings plans. HSBC Epargne Entreprise is one of the
leaders providers in France of global and personalised solutions encompassing
the various corporate savings vehicles, including employee savings, employee
share ownership, group retirement plans and stock options plans.

With some 40 years of expertise, HSBC Epargne Entreprise offers a full and
segmented range of employee savings products and services. It caters to the
daily needs of 10,000 businesses and manages 800,000 savers' accounts. Assets
under management totalled €3 billion at 30 June 2005. Its services are available
across the HSBC group's banking network in France. For more information, please
see www.hsbcee.com

Societe Generale
Societe Generale is one of the leading financial services groups in the
eurozone. With a workforce of 93,000 worldwide, its activities are focused on
three main business lines:

- Retail banking and specialised financial services, which has almost 19
  million personal customers in France and abroad.
- Global investment management & services, where the group is one of the leaders 
  in the eurozone with €1,317 billion in assets under custody and €370 billion 
  in assets under management at end-September 2005.
- Corporate and Investment Banking, which has long been among the European and 
  world leaders in the euro capital markets, derivatives and structured financing.
 
Societe Generale appears in the four main international sustainable development
indices. The bank can be contacted via www.socgen.com.

Societe Generale and employee savings
One of the French leaders with market share of 14.3 per cent, the employees
savings unit of the Societe Generale group had €10.2 billion under management at
end-December 2005. It handles the accounts of 1.5 million savers resident in
France and other countries in 16 different languages.

It implements employee savings solutions (including corporate savings plans,
PERCO corporate collective pension plans, employee share ownership) for 10 400
companies in and outside France, to which it also provides support in relation
to their group-wide plans (stock options, defined contribution and benefit
plans), with the assistance of the Societe Generale group's specialised units.






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