The website, which will open for business on September 25 when MTR Corp starts selling shares to retail investors, allows subscribers to register for share sales on Hong Kong's main and Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) boards over the Internet. Richard Kimber of HSBC commented: 'We all saw what happened last year with Tom.com, when there was a huge rush on the (distribution) channels. This is a full-service centre designed for people to learn about IPOs and apply for them online.'

More than 450,000 investors submitted applications for shares in Tom.com, the first Internet venture of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, with hundreds of people lining up at the main branch of HSBC in February when the sale started. Within two hours, investors had taken all 50,000 copies of the prospectus at the 10 branches where it was available.

HSBC is trying to avoid a repetition of events surrounding the Tom.com IPO with the MTR sale and hopes to save money in the long term with online applications. The new service is being introduced at a time when Hong Kong banks are trying to compete with each other for customers by offering them more and cheaper services, and as investment bankers are looking for advantages so they can win mandates for public share sales.

The online IPO service will be open 24 hours a day, has no additional application fees (customers will still have to pay brokerage fees) and is open to everyone, not just HSBC customers, according to the bank. It will also provide research in Chinese and English on companies selling their shares via the Internet, including copies of the prospectus.

This latest online venture by HSBC marks its rapid move into the Internet arena. On August 2 it opened its Internet banking service for selected customers, which already has about 45,000 registered users.