Not even close to the full story

A campaign that has been going for a few months, with speculation that it might be anti-Brexit or even pro-Brexit. The copy, like the other local versions in other UK cities, is evocative and brings out a sense of place. But does the bank that is trying to make us feel all warm and fluffy about them deserve it? This is a bank that was founded to facilitate the drug trade in China in the mid-nineteenth century, when the British state forced China to accept opium from India, following the Opium Wars. Wars fought, and won, for the right to distribute drugs. More recently a US Senate report in 2012 found the bank "had high profile clients involved in the drug trade, was resistant to closing down accounts with suspicious activity and had millions in suspicious cash movements between Mexico and the US". while France indicted HSBC for money laundering in 2014 after the leak of thousands of internal documents revealed worldwide fraud and money laundering. Not to mention the more commonly known banking scandals such as the fixing of the LIBOR rate. The British state however has done its best to protect the company from investigation and prosecution. The company also allegedly used threats to withdraw advertising spend to bully newspapers like the Guardian and the Telegraph into not covering some of the allegations. At least one journalist resigned over the banks's influence on news coverage.
So while the 'local' story on the side of the bus-stop might push some positive buttons it obscures a darker truth.