The HSBC (AU) Everyday Global Account is a transaction account with an international twist. You can use the account within Australia with no fees and enjoy some unique rewards through their HSBC Everyday Features (qualified through minimum deposits).
These features include:
- $100 bonus for new HSBC customers.
- 2% cashback on tap and pay purchases under $100 (capped at $50 a month)
- Bonus interest rate of 0.4% p.a. on top of the ongoing variable rate on the HSBC Serious Saver Account (other conditions apply).
The card can also be added to both Google Pay and Apple Pay (for local and international transactions).
The global component involves having separate wallets in supported currencies. The currencies available at the time of writing are:
- Australian Dollar (AUD)
- U.S. Dollar (USD)
- British Pound (GBP)
- Euro (EUR)
- Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
- Canadian Dollar (CAD)
- Japanese Yen (JPY)
- New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
- Singapore Dollar (SGD)
- Chinese Yuan (CNY) - some restrictions apply
These wallets allow conversion of currencies to spend later, allowing one to take advantage of exchange rates at particular times. The rates used are the HSBC Real Time Exchange Rates. The question, does this card have a competitive edge?
When buying overseas with the Everyday Global Account, HSBC will first try to charge the spend currency wallet. If there are insufficient funds in your spend currency wallet or the currency wallet doesn’t exist, the transaction will then be charged directly from the Australian Dollar account. When being charged directly in AUD, if HSBC covers the currency (i.e. if listed on their Real Time Exchange Rates) then they will use that rate. If not, the Visa exchange rate is used. HSBC does not charge any additional fee for overseas expenditure.
From looking at historical trends of HSBC’s rates against Visa’s rates, most cases result in Visa having better value. As such, unless currency has been converted previously, generally better value is found with a card which always uses the Visa exchange rate.
The HSBC (AU) Everyday Global Account has been awarded 5 stars for ‘Travel Card 2018-2019’ and ‘Transaction Account’ by Canstar. There are no doubts this is one of the more competitive ‘global’ cards on the market. The new HSBC (AU) app radically improves the previous mobile banking experience, better facilitating usage of the account. However, if looking purely at exchange value, there are more competitive cards available which use the Visa/Mastercard wholesale exchange rate.
Note: This post was not endorsed by HSBC Australia.