HSBC Bank USA Launches Interest-Bearing Checking Account for Businesses

HSBC Bank USA has introduced a checking account for business clients that combines an earnings credit rate (ECR) with credit interest.

The new HSBC Hybrid Checking Account earns interest on every dollar deposited into the account, the bank said in a Thursday (May 16) press release.

“Every organization has complex needs, and the HSBC Hybrid Checking Account provides an important solution to our clients by both offsetting service fees and growing account balances at the same time,” Thomas Halpin, head of global payments solutions at HSBC North America, said in the release. “This flexible interest-bearing account maximizes yield, lowers cost, and most importantly, saves time and effort by reducing the need for multiple accounts.”

With this new account, unused credits are not forfeited, as they are with traditional ECR accounts, according to the release. Instead, this account provides businesses with both earnings credit and credit interest on remaining balances.

Clients target their balance for the earning credit calculation by setting a threshold amount; any excess earnings credits are credited back to the account; and cash balances above the ECR threshold earn traditional credit interest, per the release.

In another recent development in the commercial checking account space, Pocketbook said in March that it selected Grasshopper to provide its small- to medium-sized business (SMB) customers with white-labeled, FDIC-insured commercial checking accounts.

Pocketbook’s white-labeled embedded finance solution provides payments, banking and business tools to SMBs. By partnering with Grasshopper, a digital bank for the business and innovation economy, the company gave its customers secure access to commercial checking accounts.

“We are dedicated to developing the right tools to free up valuable time for hard-working entrepreneurs so they can grow their businesses and leave the rest to us,” Bryan Crumpler, co-founder and CEO of Pocketbook, said at the time in a press release.

The launch of the HSBC Hybrid Checking Account comes about two months after it was reported that HSBC is expanding its U.S. commercial banking operations to bolster its startup lending.

Wyatt Crowell, head of U.S. commercial banking at HSBC, told Reuters on March 11 that the lender planned to recruit around 50 more bankers for his department, aimed at lending to startups in the tech and healthcare fields.

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