HSBC Visa Debit Card - (Citibank may be preferable)

[Renato1]

I applied for and was approved for an HSBC Visa Debit card in a few minutes on-line. The card arrived four days later. It has no foreign transaction charges, and it has additional features to the Citibank Debit Mastercard, like loading ten different currencies in similar fashion to the Qantas Cash card (but it doesn't have the free bottle of wine-with-meal deal that Citibank has).

The big difference was in approval time, with Citibank's long process having previously required me to go to the Post Office for identification, before finally getting their card.

I wanted a VISA Debit card, as I anticipate that I will be using BudgetAir again in future, and they have no card fees when using VISA debit.

Another big advantage for me is that the card doesn't look anything like my blue 28 Degree Mastercard, and I should be unlikely to mix the two up, as I have done in a costly fashion previously with the Citibank card.

There is one nuisance with this Debit card. Unlike with their credit cards where the PIN can be changed on-line, one has to go to an HSBC ATM to change the PIN - and my closest is about 45 minutes drive away.

Regards,
Renato

 

[Renato1]

UPDATE: The devil is in the detail.
As best I can make out, if one makes an overseas ATM withdrawal using this card, the exchange rate used will be HSBC's rate, not the VISA card rate.

So, at this instant,
Mastercard Rate 0.6190 Euro = 1 AUD (Citibank card)
VISA rate 0.6168 Euro = 1 AUD
HSBC rate 0.6027 Euro = 1 AUD
Qantas Cash 0.5870 Euro = 1 AUD

So it looks like in this case this card is better than Qantas Cash for someone worried that our dollar may collapse while they are travelling, in weeks' or months' time.(This card may be good for someone wanting to travel to the USA soon)

But for someone not too worried about that and just wanting the best rate on the day for an ATM withdrawal, the Citibank Card looks better.

Plainly, both these two types of Debit cards have their uses.
Regards,
Renato

 

[imipenam]

UPDATE: The devil is in the detail.
As best I can make out, if one makes an overseas ATM withdrawal using this card, the exchange rate used will be HSBC's rate, not the VISA card rate.

So, at this instant,
Mastercard Rate 0.6190 Euro = 1 AUD (Citibank card)
VISA rate 0.6168 Euro = 1 AUD
HSBC rate 0.6027 Euro = 1 AUD
Qantas Cash 0.5870 Euro = 1 AUD

So it looks like in this case this card is better than Qantas Cash for someone worried that our dollar may collapse while they are travelling, in weeks' or months' time.(This card may be good for someone wanting to travel to the USA soon)

But for someone not too worried about that and just wanting the best rate on the day for an ATM withdrawal, the Citibank Card looks better.

Plainly, both these two types of Debit cards have their uses.
Regards,
Renato

I have been trying mock transfers (loading other currencies) from AUD to USD and Yen (hsbc to hsbc acct) .... there is an approximately 3.2% cost hidden in the transfer rate.

I withdrew yen from my AUD account in September 2018 and also noted a less than satisfactory exhange rate.

This card is not as good as it purports to be ...

 

[theblank]

there is an approximately 3.2% cost hidden in the transfer rate.

my experiment was 2.1%

anyhow, the account is probably worthwhile if you receive inwards foreign currency swift payments, in one of those 10 currencies, AND you dont want to convert it.

 

[Renato1]

I have been trying mock transfers (loading other currencies) from AUD to USD and Yen (hsbc to hsbc acct) .... there is an approximately 3.2% cost hidden in the transfer rate.

I withdrew yen from my AUD account in September 2018 and also noted a less than satisfactory exhange rate.

This card is not as good as it purports to be ...

Your example is consistent with my example above, where the HSBC rate is 2.6% less than the Mastercard rate, which in turn is around 1% less than the actual rate at XE.com. But in my example above, the Qantas Cash rate (which is fairly typical of most Bank travel card rates) is 5.2% less than the Mastercard rate.

So plainly, if you were travelling to Europe next week, you would most likely use the Citibank card's Mastercard rate. But, if you were going to Europe in six month's time and were worried our dollar was going to drop a lot, you might find the HSBC rate attractive relative to other card providers.

I wish I'd had this card last year when at the beginning of the year it was 0.68 Euros to our dollar, but by the time I got there seven months later, it had dropped to 0.62 Euros to the dollar. I could never bring myself to take the over 5% hit putting money into Qantas Cash.
Regards,
Renato

 

[FromTheRail]

Just to add something else to your research, have you not seen the Citi Global account yet?

I'm currently in the process of setting one up.

Citi Australia