For Gary Yang, a 38-year-old Shanghai white-collar worker, the HSBC brand is a symbol of his family's glorious past.
Mr Yang, whose grandfather was a senior executive with the bank early last century, said HSBC was the epitome of the old, prosperous Shanghai.
He still lives in the three-storey house on Beijing Road that his grandfather bought more than half a century ago. Mr Yang likes to reminisce about a time when wealth and opulence was the norm for the family.
His late grandfather was among the 'old carats' - a term Shanghai people used for the super-rich who made their fortunes by dealing with or working for foreign companies.
Old carats were knowledgeable about what was happening in the world. They were always followed by a swarm of people, who either served them or hoped to learn from them.
'Whenever people knew that I was an offspring of an old HSBC executive, they kind of showed unexpected respect for me,' said Mr Yang. 'HSBC was synonymous with something lofty in people's minds.'
In Shanghai, nearly all the senior citizens have memories of HSBC, and they talk about the British bank with awe because it was a catalyst in the rise of old Shanghai.