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56 posts

Hopefully can chip in:
No you cannot deposit any cash into Expat account directly at a HSBC UK branch, if you don’t have a HSBC UK account. Tried it before. Because I have been told that they are “two different banks” (at least legally – UK vs Jersey). You can deposit cash, including foreign currency, at least as of Feb 2023, into HSBC UK, and then transfer it into your HSBC Expat account.
Don’t see much benefits of crisis24 personally, they just told me about a strike at the Indian embassy in London today.
The USD debit card sounds good if you have USD income. I do not use HSBC Expat for currency conversion, with or without global money. HSBC Expat regularly marks up the exchange rate by 200bps, in the week and in the weekend. That’s like a regular credit card foreign transaction fee. I will just use Wise, which usually is 50bps conversion margin. HSBC UK Global Money used to be 20bps fees, but recently it’s become 40bps. No idea why HSBC UK GM has different FX fee structure vs HSBC EXPAT GM. I am extra careful on fees because I travel a lot and also that’s how financials make money. Eg visa and MasterCard make most of their money from travel ie foreign transaction fees.

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