Curious about the Hong Kong card door U, are your cards still gathering dust?

light‑hearted banter
1

Previously, the OP opened cards in Hong Kong in August, getting cards from ZA and HSBC.
After that, in October, China Merchants Bank launched a very useful Mastercard standard card. This card’s spending does not use up the annual foreign‑exchange convenience quota, and it automatically purchases foreign exchange, with the RMB account settling at Mastercard rates.
Moreover, according to the OP’s testing, it can be used for payment on overseas platforms such as Cursor, Netcup, Steam.

Therefore, the OP’s Hong Kong card currently only uses one ZA card, which is charged for my Hong Kong iCloud each month, and the biggest drawback of ZA is that payments outside Hong Kong incur a fee.
I’m curious what everyone uses their Hong Kong cards for? Investing in brokerages? Or are they also just gathering dust like the OP?

2

HSBC, opened after 26 years, seems to charge a management fee if the account balance is less than HKD 10,000, at HKD 100 per month.

4 Likes
3

Brokerages have restricted opening accounts in the mainland this year, right? However, I still personally want to go apply for a card.

4

Only serving the rich, you know. The management fee is so expensive.
Speaking of that, I also have to cancel my 美卡.

5

It seems it started last year; I have an IBKR account, but I haven’t really used it.

6

Existing users are not affected, but HSBC is indeed quite mystical; it seems even small transfers can lead to account closures.

7

It’s not completely gathering dust, but it’s not used much
BOC<->BOCHK serves as a channel for transfers between the mainland and HK (I have never succeeded with cross‑border payments for some unknown reason)
HSBC is used to link for Steam purchases
ZA is used to buy Turkish gift cards to top up GPT Plus

Compared with mainland MasterCard, the biggest advantage is that it can be added to Apple Pay; after traveling abroad you can tap‑to‑pay directly without worrying about exposing the physical card number and CVV (having stayed in HK for a while, almost all stores except cash‑only ones accept MasterCard via Apple Pay).

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8

I have always heard that HSBC’s fast in-and-out can easily lead to being cleared out.
May I ask if there is any risk using it for small transactions?

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9

I have also heard that, but I currently have no brokerage needs, so the issue should not be significant.

I think as long as the spending is within a reasonable range, there is not much risk. For example, during the two months I was in Hong Kong, my daily expenses like meals and snacks were alternately charged to HSBC and BOCHK, and my main Steam account is also in the Hong Kong region; occasionally spending a little seems reasonable.

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10

Is that how it is :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth: I was even thinking of going back during the winter break to get one.

11

Can handle Bank of China and ZA
I use ZA more often :smiling_face_with_tear:

12

Okay~ because my family all use HSBC, I also wanted to open an HSBC card at first :nerd_face:

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13

The OP hasn’t received the password letter, so they originally planned to go in person to HSBC Hong Kong branch in late January, handling it offline.
Then on January 6 there was a sudden update.
Now the Hong Kong‑Macau travel permit can also directly activate online banking.
Just now I transferred 100 HKD using the cross‑border payment service and there were no issues.

14

HSBC debit card charges for Apple Music monthly in Hong Kong territory.