[1] As of 2012[update], it had some 65 branches, 1,800 employees and $1.5 billion in assets.

The government of El Salvador nationalized the bank in 1980 as part of a blanket nationalization of financial institutions, but privatized the bank in 1993.

In November 2006, HSBC acquired Grupo Banistmo (Banistmo), a Panamanian banking group that owned Panama's leading bank, Primer Banco del Istmo, and 106 other branches in Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia and Nicaragua, as well as 56.2% of the holding company that owned Bancosal.

The next year, HSBC extended two tender offers to acquire the remaining shares in the bank.

HSBC sold its operations in El Salvador to Colombian bank Davivienda in 2012 and the bank was renamed Banco Davivienda El Salvador.