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The acceptance of incentives must be unconditional although it is permitted to earmark
money to meet the wishes of the Third Party Company, provided such wishes do not
infringe any of the rules set out here. For example, a Third Party Company may wish an
incentive payment to be used for training purposes. Any divergence from this must be
discussed with the Third Party Company and only used with its agreement. If
agreement cannot be reached then the money must be returned to the Third Party
Company or used as originally intended.
Incentives can only be accepted from a Third Party Company who appear either on the
Best of Breed list or are a recognized HSBC supplier.
Consideration must always be given to the reputational risk of being associated with the
Third Party Company who provide such incentives.
The acceptance of such incentive must be approved by the CEO or Deputy CEO in the
CEO’s absence.
Any exceptional request to operate outside of any of the guidelines contained here must
be agreed by the Area Compliance Officer and approved by the CEO (or Deputy CEO
in his / her absence) in writing prior to acceptance.
Branding/ naming of inducements may not be made by the Third Party Company
except where it is part of an incentive programme with many Third Party Companies
where parts of the programme may be sub-branded.
Special rules applicable to employee incentives
Third Party Companies are not permitted to directly incentivise HBIB / HSBC Bank plc
employees, they may however fund an incentive provided by HBIB / HSBC Bank plc.
Third Party Company funded incentives should not be awarded for production or sales
performance related solely to the Third Party Company. The only exception to this is
where we have exclusivity arrangements with a company. Great care however must be
taken to ensure that any such incentive does not undermine existing HBIB / HSBC
Bank plc incentive schemes and targeting arrangements by encouraging employees to
focus on one single product type such as insurance sales.
In all cases our established rules, designed to avoid the creation of product or product
provider bias, apply. It is important to stress that qualification for any award so funded,
is to be determined solely by HBIB / HSBC Bank plc and will only be ratified once
confirmation is received that there is no evidence of inappropriate behaviour.
Gifted money should not be earmarked for individual or specific rewards, for example,
the cost of sending the top performer on a holiday, or “the XYZ Company prize for the
most improved sales person” etc. Any funding received should be included in the
overall “incentive pot” which is then used to fund incentives determined by HBIB /
HSBC Bank plc.
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