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HSBC Turkey, the Turkish arm of the global bank HSBC, allocated USD 5 million to micro-credit loans between 2008 and 2010 in Turkey.

The microcredit loans were evenly split between urban areas, rural areas and young university-graduate entrepreneurs. In disbursing the loans, HSBC worked with three non-government organizations: the Turkish Waste Prevention Foundation, the Community Volunteers, and the Female Labor Assessment Foundation. Its strategy is to engage with the microfinance sector on a commercially viable and sustainable basis, not as philanthropy. The strategy exploits HSBCs strengths and focuses the business on existing products and operations such as cash and liquidity management, collections, receivables, currency, remittances and cards.