Saudi British Bank Dividend

HSBC Holdings PLC
28 June 2004


The following news release was issued today by The Saudi British Bank, a 40 per
cent indirectly-held associate of HSBC Holdings plc.

              THE SAUDI BRITISH BANK DISTRIBUTES SAR470.5 MILLION
                 AS INTERIM DIVIDEND FOR THE FIRST HALF OF 2004

The Chairman of The Saudi British Bank (SABB), Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed
Al-Hugail, has announced that the bank's Board of Directors has approved the
distribution of a net interim dividend of SAR9 per share after deduction of
Zakat. This will result in a total gross interim dividend payment of SAR470.5
million, representing an increase of 25.8 per cent over the same period
last year.

Dividends will be credited on Wednesday 14 July 2004 to the accounts of
shareholders on the bank's share registry on Tuesday 6 July 2004 who maintain
accounts with SABB and whose details are available at the share registry.

Shareholders maintaining accounts with other banks, and who have provided
details to the share registry, will have dividends transferred to those
accounts. Shareholders who have not provided the share registry with account
details should contact their nearest SABB branch with appropriate identification
to receive their dividends. They may also provide the share registry with
details of their accounts to enable the bank to credit dividends to those
accounts in the future.

Note to editors:

The HSBC Group
The Saudi British Bank is a 40 per cent, indirectly-held associate of HSBC
Holdings plc. The HSBC Group is headquartered in the UK and serves over 110
million customers worldwide from more than 9,500 offices in 79 countries and
territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East
and Africa. With assets of US$1,034 billion at 31 December 2003, HSBC is one of
the world's largest banking and financial services organisations. HSBC is
marketed worldwide as 'the world's local bank'.





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