Banking giant HSBC streamlines, but not in Phila.

HSBC, a global banking giant with offices in 85 countries, is selling 195 branches in New York, unloading its U.S. credit-card operation in Wilmington, and trying to trim $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion in costs by the end of 2013.

Yet the London bank recently spent nearly $2 million to refurbish its Arch Street branch in Chinatown, bringing it up to the global standards of HSBC Holdings P.L.C., with $2.7 trillion in assets on Sept. 30, one of the world's five largest banks.

HSBC has a second Philadelphia branch, at 15th and Market Streets, and another in Wilmington.

How does Philadelphia fit into the plans of HSBC, given the bank's pullback from so many U.S. operations?

"HSBC has really sharpened its focus in the U.S. market," to concentrate on "internationally connected" metropolitan areas, said Michael Privitera, senior vice president and Mid-Atlantic district director for HSBC. As examples of such regions, Privitera named Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Philadelphia.

With $11.6 billion in exports in the first half of 2010, the Philadelphia region ranked 11th in exports among U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, according to the most recent data from the International Trade Administration.

In dedicating itself to an international strategy - after an expensive detour into subprime lending with the 2003 purchase of Household International Inc. for $14.2 billion, HSBC is returning to its roots. The bank was founded in 1865 as the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd. in those two Chinese cities to finance trade among Europe, India, and China.

Trade is "in the DNA of this bank," said Steven Lotito, senior vice president and head of sales for HSBC's trade and supply-chain services in North America.

Lotito and Privitera said they see significant opportunity to sell more trade services in the Philadelphia region. The Northeast overall constitutes HSBC's biggest trade-services market in the United States in terms of revenue, HSBC said, but it declined to disclose revenues from the business.

HSBC said its biggest local customer for trade services is Huatai USA L.L.C., a West Conshohocken company that exports wastepaper to Asia. Huatai USA is a subsidiary of Shandong Huatai Paper Group in China, but it also supplies other companies' mills, said company president Stuart Polsky.