HSBC is set to swap its Canary Wharf headquarters of more than 20 years for a much smaller office in the centre of London.

According to a memo to staff reported on by multiple outlets, the bank will move into the redeveloped former head office of telecoms company BT. The move to Panorama St Paul’s is set to take place in 2027, after its lease at 8 Canada Square expires.

The 556,000 square feet office is significantly smaller than HSBC’s current 45-floored skyscraper. The current base is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority which co-owns the Canary Wharf Group and has a significant portfolio of London properties including iconic department store Harrods.

At its peak, up to 8,000 staff were working at HSBC’s Canary Wharf office on any given day, but that number has dropped since the Covid-19 pandemic and the bank’s embrace of hybrid working. The company is globally reducing its office space by about 40 per cent, and previously told staff in September 2022 that it was going to eliminate around a quarter of the space it occupied at 8 Canada Square.

At that time, HSBC chief operating officer John Hinshaw told staff that the bank wanted “to have an even more flexible and dynamic workspace that meets the needs of colleagues and clients.”

FStech has reached out to HSBC for comment.

HSBC recently announced the hire of Melissa Tuozzolo as the new global head of client service for its global payments solutions (GPS) business. She joins from Bank of America where she spent one year as its head of international payments. Prior to that she spent over a decade at Citi across two spells at the bank.

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