grab market share Midland scrapped current account charges. It was so successful that all other banks in the United Kingdom had to quickly follow and offer the same or risk losing their customers. The country has had free banking ever since. Midland joins the HSBC Group The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation acquired a 14.9% equity interest in Midland Bank in 1987, and a strong working relationship developed. In October 1989, First Direct was established and was at the forefront of telephone banking, with person to person service available twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year. In June 1992, HSBC Holdings plc acquired full ownership of Midland Bank. At the time, it was one of the largest acquisitions in banking history, and gave HSBC a major foothold in Europe, which it needed to complement its existing business in Asia and the Americas, when it had to move its Hong Kong based headquarters to London on 1 January 1993, accepting primary banking supervision by the Bank of England. Midland Bank was renamed HSBC Bank in June 1999, as part of the adoption of the HSBC brand throughout the Group. The last head office of the Midland Bank, opposite the Bank of England in Poultry and Princes Street, was sold in October 2006 to a tycoon from Russia, with HSBC vacating the banking hall on the ground floor and huge underground deposit vaults in 2007. In 2012 the ground floor was used in the Channel 4 game show The Bank Job. The architect John Alfred Gotch designed the building, with assistance from Sir Edwin Lutyens. Built between 1921 and 1939, and symbol of the 1930s pride of the biggest bank in the world, the building is now The Ned Hotel City of London. Until around 2020, the HSBC UK SWIFT code (all offices in the United Kingdom) remained MIDLGB22, reflecting its past as the Midland Bank. Branding The Midland Bank was famous for its golden griffin logo, surrounded by golden coins originally introduced in 1965 on a black, then later blue background, and for its slogan "the listening bank," written by the advertising executive Rod Allen. Advertisements for the bank appeared in the popular computer game Theme Park. An animated friendly version of the Griffin fronted the bank's television advertising during the 1980s. The Midland Bank still traded as Midland Bank, but using the HSBC logo from 1997, and was