Australia accounts: enhancements to foreign exchange information beginning July 2020

Last updated: 1 June 2020

Starting in July, and continuing into August, we’ll be providing you with more transparent foreign exchange (FX) transaction for transactions made from your Australia accounts.

What’s changing?

Starting in July, we’re introducing the mid-market rate in HSBCnet’s Get Rate and Preview exchange rate screens.* The mid-market rate helps you assess the currency conversion rate offered for your payments and transfers.

Here’s what the new screens will look like:

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What is the mid-market rate?

The mid-market rate indicates the midpoint between the prevailing rates at which HSBC could buy or sell one currency against another in the interbank market. It’s based on the exchange rate market for each currency we offer, so it fluctuates in accordance with market conditions.

We provide this rate for information purposes only, as it does not include our risk appetite, the costs and charges we incur when conducting the transaction, or our commercial return.

Account Information and Statement Reporting

In August, this new information will be available for both incoming and outgoing foreign exchange transactions on statements and advices for your Australia accounts (space permitting).

In addition to the mid-market rate, we’ll also provide the booking timestamp to help you identify the specific time your FX rate was booked at.

Here’s what the new narrative will look like in Account Information:

(select image to enlarge)

Reports and files download:

If you use ERP systems or automated account reconciliation programs for your electronic statements, you may be impacted. To ensure the ongoing operation of your automated reconciliation processes, we recommend that you review your internal systems and, if required, update them as soon as possible. If you have any questions about file format changes, please contact your local Client Services representative.

This enhancement will be applied to statement entries in the following file formats: HSBCnet Account Information Excel exports, and Reports and files download BAI2 End of Day, MT940, and CSV formatted reports. The change will also be visible on the Account Information transactions list.

Will I see the new foreign exchange information for all my transactions?

The new foreign exchange information will be available for the majority of your payment transactions, however in certain exceptional scenarios, this information may not be available.

What’s next?

We’ll continue to introduce these enhancements across a number of other markets throughout 2020 – 2021.

Find out more

You can learn more about HSBC’s foreign exchange rates by selecting the ‘?’ icon in Get Rate and Preview exchange rate screens on HSBCnet.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact your local HSBCnet Support Centre.