Household HSBC Watch

HSBC made the news again. This time it was an article about home equity lines of credit — or the fact that such credit lines are frozen or gone all together. When Denise Lopez bought two new tables, a floor lamp and a chair recently, her intent was to finance it with her […]

It has been published elsewhere but we must add this HSBC article: An HSBC clerk who attempted to steal £72m while working in the bank’s Canary Wharf headquarters has been sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Jagmeet Channa had sent €60m (£47.7m) to one of Société […]

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 […]

A controversial bonus scheme which could net five senior directors of banking giant HSBC more than $240 Million over the next three years has been approved by shareholders, although there was opposition. Only 82 percent of those who voted were in agreement. Eight percent of voters abstained, while 11 percent were in opposition. […]

Shares of Talbot’s Inc. were battered early Wednesday following its disclosure that HSBC is no longer prepared to continue making letter of credit facilities available to the company. A letter of credit essentially substitutes the credit of a third party (usually a large bank) for that of a borrower. Did HSBC Finance attempt […]

We wonder why HSBC is raising credit card interest rates for some customers. No information is given, other than “it was a business decision.” Others call it predatory lending - a term that HSBC Finance (formerly Household International) is very familiar with. The federal government lowered the interest rates to a point […]

We missed this article for some reason, but a reader called our attention to it this morning. The man who conspired with the vice president of an HSBC Bank in Brooklyn has pled guilty to numerous crimes, including conspiracy, bribery and solicitation to commit a crime of violence. Once again money laundering surrounds […]

Merchants are furious at HSBC UK after the bank’s e-payments system failed again, for the second time in two weeks. Similar problems left merchants unable to take payments for two days over the weekend of 29-30 March. Complaints from merchants at that time focused on the fact that HSBC did not contact […]

HSBC Chairman Stephen Green said in an interview published Friday that banks should “stare down” hedge fund investors who’ve been seeking a more active role in company strategy. It’s not enough to have 1 percent equity and feel you have the right to condition the choices of a big financial institution,” Green said. […]

HSBC and activist investor organizaiton Knight-Vinke have been challenging each other for quite some time. This past weekend Knight-Vinke said “‘The dismissive comments in your letter conveyed a worrying degree of complacency. I hope this is just a matter of tone and not of substance.” The same United States division of HSBC […]