HSBC, the bank that offered a “rescue” mortgage deal to help homeowners facing surging repayments, is hitting the same borrowers who take up the deal with arrangement fees of up to £9,999. It has emerged that after an increase last Wednesday in the fees charged for taking out the deal, the maximum fee for a customer applying for a 4.79 per cent deal on a £250,000 mortgage - the lowest possible rate that HSBC will match for borrowers who are not existing customers - rose by 50 per cent, from £5,000 to £7,699. For existing HSBC customers, who can take out bigger loans of up to £500,000, the maximum fee rises to £9,999.

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Forty-eight workers at HSBC Mortgage Services’ Chesapeake facility are losing their jobs. HSBC Mortgage Services notified state officials of the layoffs this week. The notice says the layoffs are effective Aug. 17 and are due to a permanent reduction of the company’s work force there. The Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance says HSBC had more than 1,000 employees in Chesapeake in 2007.

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A retired HSBC employee sent this note: “Good luck HSBC. California got Countrywide today for misleading loans. HSBC was exactly the same.” The statement addresses an area we have been studying for over a year. One of the Household - HSBC Watch team members has a Countrywide loan and has never had a problem. Not so with our members who formerly had HSBC loans or credit cards. Complaints about HSBC - both HSBC Finance and HSBC USA - are received every day. While we are not defending Countrywide we totally agree with the fact that HSBC Finance and Decision One are exactly the same as Countrywide relative to misleading loans. In fact HSBC is probably worse, as they have years of practice dating back to the predatory lending days of Household International.

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Several HSBC websites are subject to scripting flaws that create a possible mechanism for crooks to create more convincing phishing scams. Security blog xssed.com has posted a list of affected domains, which include HSBC sites in multiple territories including the UK. Xssed has been tracking problems on the bank’s sites since last year. The bank has been taking up to two months to fix problems, with issues pointed out to it in May still unresolved. Xssed came right out and said “Protect your customers’ privacy and security now! Leaving site-specific vulnerabilities open for days, weeks or months, can lead to substantial financial losses!”

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HSBC Finance is a nationally known subprime lender. At the onset of United States mortgage problems HSBC Finance had few, if any, prime FHA insured loan packages. Casting caution to the wind HSBC loaned to almost anyone. While HSBC was not the only subprime lender, nor the only mortgage lender to suffer big losses, specialists and niche markets bear considerable watching. Now the President of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chakib Khelil insisted on Tuesday that oil producers saw no need to raise supply, blaming high prices on factors outside its control.

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