Your introduction to Zing, HSBC’s new multi-currency and FX payments app

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• Jose Marques says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:11

  I use Atlantic for international payments, those are received in minutes.

  • david says:

    19 Aug19 August 18:15

    Only good for send, not receiving.

• andy says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:15

  I continue to see zero use of this (and a lot of its competitors really). I have ( and continue to have) Halifax Clarity Credit card. No annual fee. Unlimited free ATM w/ls in the UK or abroad (also in USA, Asia, Japan, Latam, so everywhere) at the spot rate. No ATM fees (unless the ATM itself adds on). No non-GBP fees. No limit per month on cash w/l or spend. I continue to be amazed why people use all these zings, revoluts, starlings, what not.

  • manilabay says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:45

    You’re comparing apples to oranges.
    Yes both are forms of payment via the card. Can you send money overseas with a Clarity Card? No. Can you hold various currencies in a savings pot on a Clarity Card? No.
    There’s a market for all those products you name (Starling and Revolut also competing with traditional banks), but you are probably not in the target market.

    • andy says:

      19 Aug19 August 13:26

      i can send money with wise. so this is solved. i cannot hold various currencies in a savings pot in clarity card and 99.9% of the people dont need that – they just need to pay in the local currency, cash or with a card, in the most hassle free way – clarity card. Savings pot in different currencies? Unless we are talking some very big money accumulating in these different currencies, and assuming that you 1) get the real market interest rate 2) the FX differential doesnt reflect already the interest rate differential and 3) you are able to move indeed unlimited amount of funds between these ‘foreign currencies savings pot’, then this is irrelevant. And most likely if you met all 3 conditions, then you would be a professional investor or a professional investment account would suit you. Again (and my own view), 99.9% of the users of these products dont care if they get an extra 0.5% or 1% interest on the spare 300 shekels in their ‘foreign currency savings pot’ vs the pound.

      • Londonsteve says:

        19 Aug19 August 22:55

        You’re looking at this from a very personal angle. This additional functions clearly have no interest for you, but they do for other people. Fact is, the likes of Wise, Revolut and now Zing provide a one-stop-shop service allowing you to send, receive, store and spend with one app and one card with low or no fees applied. The Halifax Clarity card is a credit product, you can only do one thing: spend subject to your credit limit. A big thing you cannot do is send cash as that’s considered a cash withdrawal transaction whichever third party you’d use, resulting in a cash advance fee and interest payable from the date of the transaction.

        • Lady London says:

          20 Aug20 August 00:05

          +1 @Londonsteve. Apples and oranges.

        • andy says:

          20 Aug20 August 07:21

          you are wrong there is no cash advance fee with Halifax Clarity. zero. never has been. irrespective of whether you use Wise, any other service or an ATM. The interest does accrue from moment of withdrawal… until you pay it back, which can be 1 minute after. Exactly the same amount of time that takes you to load the cash from your checking account to any Zing/Revolut/etc, just that in this instance you are paying off the CC. So, again, in practical terms, you CAN send cash and it costs ZERO

  • Flying Misfit says:

    19 Aug19 August 11:22

    All granted, and yes the ability to withdraw cash from overseas ATM highly convenient (provided you pay it off as quick as possible to minimise any interest accruing), but what it does do is record on your credit report that you have withdrawn cash on a credit card even if you pay it off immediately. For those sensitive to such matters on their credit reports then Clarity is not ideal when other fee free options exist.

    • andy says:

      19 Aug19 August 13:29

      this is irrelevant. i have used the clarity card for over 10 years exactly the same way, and withdrawing a lot of cash from atms when abroad. the mark on the credit record genuinely irrelevant. not only has it never come up, i have perfect credit rating from all rating agencies. so if this is the only thing you are being *threatened* with against using just what has been available there all the way, rest assured it is a marketing scam. 😉

      Let me repeat, there is no limit to the weekly or monthly cash withdrawals w Halifax Clarity. not 100 or 200 per month or any other random amount. All presuming of course that you pay off the amount quickly, which you should do and are able to do immediately with the app in hand. I wish Halifax actually paid me for the promo i make of this product 😀

• Daniel says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:17

  Wise are not going to be happy about that lime green coloured logo 😏

  • Daniel says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:17

    Be* happy 😅

  • AJA says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:32

    +1

    • Nick says:

      19 Aug19 August 11:01

      It’s brat!

• Russell says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:21

  I always use Halifax Clarity for global money – does this have better rates or some other advantage I’m missing?

  • andy says:

    19 Aug19 August 13:33

    no. you are not missing anything. even if it had somewhat better rates, and even if it were material, say 1%, it is still irrelevant (to me ) vs the peace of mind and ease of use of Halifax. And Halifax uses spot rates.

    But lets imagine Halifax had 1% worse rate. You go on a holiday, you take out say 2000 cash over that holiday. Lets assume you wait the full 1 month to pay it off (you can pay off same day, so no interest). So that imaginary 1% worse rate for one month would be 1/12%, so on 2000, that would cost you exactly GBP 1.8 more. Really. id pay much more than that for just ease of use

    • Flying Misfit says:

      19 Aug19 August 14:19

      I get all you say, but if you are in the market for a mortgage that is one input value on the report I would rather not have there no matter what the overall score is

      • Andy says:

        19 Aug19 August 14:31

        Ok. I am on my 3rd mortgage in the past 10yrs. I am telling you is irrelevant but to each their own

        • Londonsteve says:

          19 Aug19 August 23:02

          The materiality of the cash withdrawals will be relative to your overall credit limit. If your limit is £30k and you withdraw occasionally withdraw £500 in cash while on holiday, I believe nobody will care. If your limit is much lower and you do the same, it can appear to the credit ratings agencies that you are in ‘financial distress’ with a commensurate negative impact on your credit rating which can and will damage someone’s ability to get a mortgage or a personal loan in the future. Even if you repay it almost immediately. The ratings agencies can’t tell whether you wanted this cash to pay for your dinner in a taverna because they don’t accept cards, or because you needed a bridging loan to cover essential expenses having spent your salary before the end of the month.

        • andy says:

          20 Aug20 August 07:26

          This is in reply to Londonsteve below re-credit limit.

          Again you are wrong. My limit on Halifax Clarity is 3k. I have never bothered to increase it.. because i do not need it. Every time i go on holiday, i withdraw much more than 3k over a very short period of time (so a couple of times per year). How ? – i take the cash that i need, i immediately pay it off in the app. I do this 5 times over 5 days and i am already touching the limit.

          Has there been any negative credit rating impact at all, let alone nonsense such as ‘financial distress’? Zero. Like I have said, i am on my 3rd mortgage in the past 10 yeas, but you feel free to believe the preachers, not experience 😉

          By far the most important things when applying for mortgage are (in the following order) 1) your overall income relative to how much you want to borrow 2) have you ever missed any payment (card, utlitiy etc) 3) how much debt do you already have on cards, loans etc (and it only matters to the extent that it is deducted from your borrowing limit calculation, mentioned in 1).

          Free tips for everyone, you are welcome

• Will says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:25

  Any of these accept foreign cash deposits in uk?

  • daveinitalia says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:41

    Not aware of any of these companies accepting foreign cash deposits in the UK. Revolut has recently introduced the ability to pay in cash via participating local shops, they definitely only take pounds though.

  • John says:

    19 Aug19 August 22:17

    HSBC currency accounts accept foreign cash deposits.

    Barclays also do but they charge for everything except euros.

• Jon says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:39

  Slightly off-topic but related, and perhaps relevant to the various products discussed above – had a mildly surprising experience with Wise the other day. Was sending foreign currency to a friend to reimburse them for my share of a group hotel bill. I inadvertently put “Havana” as the payment reference – I meant to put “Avani” but auto-correct did its thing and I didn’t notice until the final screen by which time I didn’t think it worth going back to correct it. I should have done. It seems that one word alone in the payment reference is sufficient to trigger a sanctions review… Which can take up up to 7 days, thus defeating the whole point of near-instant transfers.

  A few emails and a couple of days later they cancelled the transaction at least, so I was able to re-do it with a different payment reference and this time it went through in seconds.

  Does somewhat makes me question how seriously they take compliance with sanctions regimes – I mean, surely they’re a bit more sophisticated than just looking for certain keywords in the payment reference?! 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️😂

  • John says:

    19 Aug19 August 22:19

    I believe the US requires this. Remember when a Danish guy tried to buy Cuban cigars from Germany or something, and the US confiscated the money because it was paid in US dollars?

    • Londonsteve says:

      19 Aug19 August 23:09

      That is truly an absurd infringement of people’s freedoms outside of the US. Cuban cigars are freely sold in Germany and are entirely legal to purchase. In any case, how do they know the subject of the transaction was not Honduran or Nicaraguan cigars, a tobacconist will usually sell cigars from a variety of countries. What makes this even more daft is that cigars in Cuba need to be purchased in a fictitious currency called MLC which is at parity with the USD and it’s usually USD cash that’s used to top up a Cuban MLC card. Foreign visitors will typically use a non-US credit or debit card but the underlying transaction is charged in USD!

• daveinitalia says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:46

  Although I fail to see how it’ll be better than the other alternatives I’ve signed up and plan to refer a few people with the promise of making £20 for spending a fiver. I mean it’s worth trying out.

  One thing that annoys me about Revolut referrals is that it requires you to order a physical card (I’d be happy to never use a physical card again) which is annoying as their virtual cards can also be added to Apple Pay. Hopefully Zing doesn’t require you to order a physical card but if they do at least they don’t charge postage on it

• Axel says:

  19 Aug19 August 11:33

  Changes to hsbc premier,

  Card fee up to £290 from 23 sept

  Earn 3 reward points for every £1 so 1.5 avios/kris
  Complimentary fast track
  Airport discounts
  10% expedia still listed

  Good matching offer to Barclaycard Avios

  • Mike says:

    20 Aug20 August 11:28

    Source? HSBC website still lists old WE card, which is still “temporarily” unavailable to new applicants.

    • Rob says:

      20 Aug20 August 14:19

      It’s correct, letters have gone out. Article tomorrow.

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