HSBC US Premier Status
According to HSBC US's official statement, to maintain Premier Status with HSBC US, you must meet one of the following conditions:
- Open a checking account with HSBC US and have a total deposit or investment account balance of $75,000 or more.
- Make recurring direct deposits totaling at least $5,000 per month into your HSBC US checking account.
- Have an active mortgage account with HSBC US with an original loan amount of at least $500,000.
- Have an active private banking account with HSBC US.
Clearly, the easiest condition to meet, aside from meeting the asset requirements, is to have recurring direct deposits totaling at least $5,000 per month.
Direct Deposit | What & How to
What is "Direct Deposit"?
Direct deposit is a method of depositing funds directly into the recipient's account. In most cases, it refers to the payment of salaries by companies or government welfare payments. In other words, HSBC US wants you to designate your salary-receiving account with them and have a monthly salary payment of at least $5,000. This expectation is easy to understand, as all retail banks around the world want customers to consider them as their primary bank for receiving salaries.
How to do "Direct Deposit"?
Generally, our readers should not have the ability to perform true direct deposits. However, if a transaction is determined by a specific bank system to be a direct deposit, there is still room for action. This article only discusses operations related to HSBC US. If you want to learn about operations with other banks, please refer to Doctor of Credit's article.
What transfers will HSBC consider as "Direct Deposit"?
The answer is all ACH transfers initiated by non-HSBC US institutions (ACH Push).
Yes, HSBC US is like this. All transactions transferred to HSBC US from other financial institutions, whether it be other banks, credit unions, brokerages, or even Wise, will be considered as direct deposits by HSBC US's system, at least by the system that determines Premier Status.
In other words, as long as you have an account with any other financial institution in the United States, whether it be another bank, credit union, brokerage, or even Wise, as long as you use ACH transfers (instead of FedWire or Zelle, for example) to transfer at least $5,000 per month to HSBC US, you can help maintain Premier Status in the following month.
However, HSBC US actually has the ability to determine whether your income is truly salary income. Therefore, do not ask customer service or RM (Relationship Manager). This is a basic rule for taking advantage—do not ask customer service.
How can I know if I have truly met the requirements?
Since HSBC US has a grace period for new accounts, no management fees will be charged even if you do not meet the requirements during the grace period. Many readers are concerned about whether their operations truly meet HSBC US's requirements. However, HSBC US will not tell you if you have met the requirements. And as mentioned earlier, asking customer service is meaningless and can be risky. So how can you determine if you meet the requirements during the grace period? This is where I introduce another HSBC US product—
HSBC US Relationship Savings
You can find information about this account on the HSBC US website.
Relationship Savings is a type of savings account that offers additional interest rates when you meet specific requirements. Although this so-called "additional interest rate" is nothing more than the standard savings rate offered by most banks in the United States (excluding the Big Four and US Bank), the requirements for this account are special:
- Spend at least $500 per month on your HSBC US Debit Card.
- Make recurring direct deposits totaling at least $5,000 per month into your HSBC US checking account.
- Have an active mortgage account with HSBC US with an original loan amount of at least $500,000.
- Maintain Premier Elite status with HSBC US.
Did you notice something? Yes, both Relationship Savings and Premier Checking can be maintained by making recurring direct deposits of at least $5,000 per month. However, Relationship Savings will send you an email once you meet the requirements:
This solves the biggest problem—I don't know if I meet the requirements.
How to open a Relationship Savings account?
You cannot open a Relationship Savings account online. You must contact an RM to open the account. Since HSBC US does not assign dedicated RMs to customers, there are mainly two ways to contact an RM:
- Contact HSBC US customer service or call the Direct RM Team and inform them that you want to open a Relationship Savings account. They will arrange a temporary RM for you.
- If you have previously communicated with any RM via email, the email you received should contain a button like this:
Clicking the calendar icon will allow you to directly schedule an appointment with the RM through the system.
The RM will communicate with you through video or phone conferences to open the account. If they ask you about the reason for opening the account, you can tell them that you were attracted by the recent interest rates in the United States. This reason is very reasonable, as interest rates in the United States are still relatively high.
After Meeting the Requirements
Once you meet HSBC US's requirements, you may want to set up the United States as your primary account. How do you do that?
Contact Customer Service
First, you can call HSBC US customer service. There are two departments that can handle this:
- HSBC US Local Business Department: +1-888-662-4722 or +1-716-841-6866. The latter is a collect call number for calls made outside the United States.
- HSBC US International Banking Department (IBC): +1-877-850-4722 or +1-716-841-0613. The latter is a collect call number for calls made outside the United States.
Note that the bank's customer service hotline is available 24/7, while the International Banking Department only operates from 7 am to 6 pm Eastern Time on weekdays. After the first Sunday in March each year, this corresponds to 7 pm to 6 am China time. After the first Sunday in November each year, this corresponds to 8 pm to 7 am China time (Why is there this difference? Please refer to "Daylight Saving Time").
In addition, the Local Business Department has Mandarin and Cantonese customer service, while the International Banking Department only has English customer service.
Set HSBC US as a Local Account (Optional)
If you opened HSBC US as an international customer (i.e., you do not have an SSN), your HSBC US account is in "international account" status. You need to set it as a local account by informing customer service.
Set HSBC US as the Primary Account
You need to contact IBC to set HSBC US as the primary account for your global account. If your spoken English is not good enough, you can also contact HSBC China to complete this step, but you need to have an HSBC China account. HSBC China's customer service hotline is 95366. Once connected, choose international banking services.
In addition, there are indications that each region's HSBC accounts need to be separately set as the primary account, but there have been no reports indicating that not doing so will result in management fees being deducted. If your spoken English is good enough to communicate, you can try contacting HSBC in various regions to see which region has the current primary account setting for your account.
Notes
- Do not fast in and out of any account, especially same-day transactions.
- HSBC US accounts with a balance of 0 and no transactions for a period of time will be closed.