HSBC is leaving Australia: what it means for your home loan

On 18 November, HSBC's Australian credit cards close for good. About $36 billion of home loans are also on the move, and the paperwork those borrowers are getting says most things stay the same.

HSBC announced on 31 July that it is closing its retail banking business in Australia. Its home and personal loan portfolio is being sold to an investor group led by Blackstone, subject to regulatory approval. Pepper Money is expected to manage and service the loans from the first half of 2027. You can check any letter you receive against the copies HSBC publishes online.

If your loan is one of them, the promise is that little changes. Your interest rate, fees, discounts and repayments carry across to Pepper Money unchanged. The loans will not be switched onto Pepper Money's own products or advertised rates, and there is no fee for the transfer. Some terms will be updated for regulatory and process reasons, and you will be told before any change.

You cannot opt out of the transfer. If you would rather not move to Pepper Money, you can refinance or pay out your loan before it transfers.

The rest of the retail bank is closing in stages. Credit card transactions stop on 17 November, and the agreement ends the next day. Annual fees stopped in August, and refunds for fees charged over the past year are processed by 12 October. The six branches with dates so far, in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, trade for the last time on 14 December. The bank stopped selling new retail products on 31 July.

The exit is about scale. Retail banking in Australia rewards size, and HSBC never built it: the five biggest lenders hold about 80% of a $2.5 trillion home loan market. For the buyer, the book pays interest every month. For the servicer, it is steady fee income, account by account.

The number worth knowing is the one it has always been: your comparison rate, which folds a loan's fees into the rate so two loans compare like for like. The cheapest variable rate on our board is Up's at 5.95% comparison (5.95% advertised). CBA's standard variable sits at 6.72% comparison (6.34% advertised). That is 0.77 percentage points, about $352 a month on a $700,000 loan over 30 years, principal and interest.

Two things stay open. The sale needs regulatory approval, and after the transfer your rate can still change under the terms of your agreement, exactly as it can today. What the book's next owner decides about pricing is the part nobody can see yet.

The transfer asks nothing of you today. Start with your own comparison rate, then compare it with the cheapest on the board.

We don't receive commissions or affiliate payments from lenders, and this is general information, not personal advice.