Household HSBC Watch

WK in Illinois said: “I have followed the entries on your website for several years and I can understand why HSBC customers and employees feel the way they do. I was employed at HSBC for 10 years in the HFC and Retail Services divisions of Household International which later became HSBC Finance. […]

It has been ten years since consumer advocates started Household - HSBC Watch. Sometimes we wonder where the years went. Ten years ago we started a single web page on a free server. Now we have over 3000 visitors every day. Part of the traffic obviously is a result of the […]

Independencia, a specialist lender to low income Mexican families with more than 1 million clients — read as Subprime — is on their own. HSBC Holdings Plc said on Thursday it is selling its entire 18.68 percent stake in Mexican consumer lender Financiera Independencia to JPMorgan for 1.568 billion pesos (USD$145 million). If […]

In a lesson plan, designed to teach about predatory and subprime lending, we asked this question of students in 2005: “What is the impact on a country’s economy if predatory lending is left unchecked?” Three years later the answer is clearly obvious. As of today the world has seen over $515 billion […]

In the US Banker section of American Banker, we spotted an interesting line: “The concern was, ‘How much subprime do you do? What is your risk of having what Household (International) had?’” It was a question asked of Richard Davis, CEO of U.S. Bancorp, in February 2007. HSBC bought Household in […]

NEARLY half of all mortgage shoppers use the Internet to do research on mortgages. If your research got you to this website you have reached Household - HSBC Watch consumer advocates, a watchdog organization not affiliated with HSBC in any way. You are doing your homework, however, and digging deeply. Perhaps HSBC […]

This is a perfect example of HSBC’s exportation of the Household International model of doing business. Credit card interest rates have been increased to as high as 50 percent in India. While proud of making a profit in developing nations HSBC is not alone. ICIC, Deutsche Bank, SBI and HSBC have either […]

A study conducted by Citizens for Equal Access to Credit found that a large percentage of subprime credit card users improved their credit rating within a two-year period. Based on a study of 360,000 card users, at least 35 percent of consumers with low-limit credit cards improved their credit scores in two years. […]

China and India have been growing at steady paces, but some have pointed to a possible bubble. Already, China has shown its weakness as pretax profit for HSBC in China fell 41% to $907 million. Meanwhile, shares in Korea Exchange Bank, HSBC’s newest target, have fallen as much as 12%. For now, HSBC remains devoted […]

HSBC said the bank would export the business model of Household International, purchased by HSBC in 2003. As disturbing as it sounds, HSBC bragged about exporting the so-called “Household Model” even though history will show the model as a predatory lender. Subprime losses in the billions of dollars showed a failure. Pragati […]