HSBC closing retail business in Australia over next 18 months

[oz_mark]

Interesting….A Chinese bank pulling out of Australia when they are trying to woo and influence the Pacific region. Having said that, I will be disappointed to lose my Star Alliance Visa card

Don't know how Chinese they are. They are London based.

 

[luxury-lizard]

Very annoying - my main bank as well - such a hassle having to update all those direct debits - where to next. Have an ANZ chequing account but not inclined to use that as my main account.

 

[playbargain]

This is no surprise to anyone following the news that they were looking to get out of the AUS market since early last year. I moved to HSBC from Citi when it got sold to NAB, but got out of HSBC too earlier this year as the writing was on the wall. Such a shame as they did offer some good products, but it is what it is.

 

[kpc]

Not great as HSBC is my main bank

The most annoying thing is that I have all my direct credits and debits into my HSBC acct...will have to find a new bank in the next 2-3 months and start changing all the direct credits and debits over the next 12+ months...huge sigh!!

 

[seachange19]

My HSBC Qantas Rewards card has been a great card, but will be cancelling it before end of first year. With no annual fee for the first year and 1.5 QFF points per dollar spend with extra bonus points for QF spend, I have earned over 140K QFF points in 10 months just from what would have been normal spending. Of course with no annual fee there was also no sign-up bonus. But earning 140K point in 10 months for no fee was a pretty good deal.

So I suppose with HSBC exit from the local market, the option to "churn" to this card again in the future is unlikely to exit.

Some members may be interested in getting the HSBC Star Alliance card before it is withdrawn to take advantage of the Star Gold status.

It’s already withdrawn, you can’t apply for an HSBC cards as of today.