Jamaica among governments vying for HSBC's possible new headquarters

The ‎Caribbean state of Jamaica has contacted HSBC to lure the bank into shifting its headquarters to the island state, Sky News reported.

Stuart Gulliver, HSBC's chief executive, disclosed the approach from Jamaica, and another from the Netherlands, during a 'town hall' meeting with senior bank staff last week, according to the report.

The Asia-focused bank earlier announced it will review the headquarters' current UK location in order to maintain its competitive advantage, amid rising regulatory headaches there.

In an investor update, the company executives said the review should be completed by the end of 2015, and set out 11 basic criteria for the new location.

The criteria are: economic importance and future growth, scale of HSBC's existing presence, highly competitive economy, long-term stability, high transparency international score, ability to attract and retain top talent, tax systems, government policy in support of growth and development of financial services sector, robust commercial and regulatory environments and financial impact for the group.

A number of other governments have also reached out to HSBC, as they look to become the 'prestigious' home of Europe's biggest bank, the report added.

Nevertheless, HSBC is widely expected to select Hong Kong, where the bank was based before its shift to London in the early 1990s, if it decides to relocate.

In the update to investors, Gulliver also outlined plans to cut up to 25,000 more jobs, accounting for 10% of its workforce, by the end of 2017, and confirmed that he was looking to sell its operations in Brazil and Turkey.