Reuters is reporting that HSBC intends to open new branches - bank branches, not HFC and Beneficial Finance branches - across the United States. Quoting Kevin Martin, executive vice president of HSBC Bank USA, the bank inteneds to open new branches with a focus on New Jersey, California and Washington D.C. Plans extend to 2009, if not further. One must ask how Martin intends to overcome the Household International / HFC / Beneficial / subprime / predatory lending stigma. Does HSBC intend to make bankers out of HSBC Finance employees?

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Isn’ this sweet: The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Ltd in Bangladesh has awarded the winners of the HSBC Wedding Loan Promotion through a small ceremony held in Sylhet recently. We propose a promotion in the United States. It would be called the ‘HSBC Process Your Payment Correctly’ promotion. That would be nice too. The only problem is the audit trail it would leave.

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We invite everyone to rate their HSBC backed credit card at Household - HSBC Watch. Here are the ratings thus far:
The best: 14% (351)
Good: 7% (176)
Fair: 6% (152)
Poor: 14% (356)
Totally Unprofessional: 60% (1541)
Total Votes : 2576

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After you take the self-serving fluff out the press release, there is some news as HSBC and Loyalty Lab form an alliance. Loyalty Lab formed an alliance with HSBC Finance Corporation’s card and retail services business to extend advanced loyalty and customer retention marketing (CRM) capabilities to retailers that offer private label and co-branded credit cards through HSBC. There is one problem with the “alliance” as we see it:

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If you worked overtime for HSBC, HSBC Finance, or any subsidiaries such as Beneficial or HFC you can seek relief. A new suit was filed today. The suit follows the recent conditional FLSA certification by Judge Maxine Chesney of the Northern District of California of Nichols Kaster & Anderson’s Wong, et al. v. HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA), et al. (07-cv-2446) suit.

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