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HSBC North America has reacted to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina by allowing certain customers to waive late fees and hold off on payments to their loans and credit cards.
 Hurricane Katrina swept across the gulf coast and flooded the city of New Orleans last week. Experts say that it will take several months or even years to rebuild from the disaster and many residents of the area have lost everything they owned. As the clean-up effort gets underway threats of water-born disease and an even higher death toll are imminent.
Customers of HSBC North America who are located in parts of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi that have been affected by Hurricane Katrina are being allowed to delay their payments to their HSBC accounts for 30 days. HSBC is also waiving any late and over-limit fees, or other penalties that might fall to any of these customers' accounts. The company will not report any late payments on these accounts to credit bureaus.
HSBC is involved in many loan and credit card transactions, including HSBC Mortgage Services, HSBC Auto Finance, HSBC Bank USA. There are also HSBC-issued credit cards for various retail stores, as well as general credit cards held through HSBC bank.
 In addition to these rule exceptions being made for victims of the hurricane, HSBC North America has stated that they will make a contribution of $250,000 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, and will match any and all employee contributions. Although branches of HSBC located in the disaster area have been closed, the company has stated that they will continue to pay employees who worked at those branches, as well as provide hotel rooms for those employees who have evacuated to Houston. HSBC has nearly 1,000 employees in the gulf area which has been impacted by the hurricane.
HSBC customers do not need to call the company in order to take advantage of the 30 day payment delay. Those customers with HSBC-issued credit cards are also eligible to receive waivers for cash-advance fees, as well as emergency credit line increases. Decisions on these waivers are made on a case by case basis, so if a customer is in need of the waivers they should call HSBC and speak to a representative.
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