Nerfed: HSBC Everyday Global Account ends cashback for GIRO payments

The HSBC Everyday Global Account (EGA) has always been one of the more popular bank accounts out there, because it’s basically a free $300 or S$500 each month for very little effort.

How it works is simple: make a minimum deposit to your EGA and five eligible transactions, and enjoy 1% cashback on the HSBC Everyday Global Debit Card (which no one really cares about) and 0.5% cashback GIRO bill payments (which people care about very much). You can even withdraw the deposited funds immediately and park them elsewhere if you wish.

Mind you, the EGA was even sweeter prior to May 2024, when you could also earn 1% cashback on any HSBC credit card including the popular HSBC Revolution!

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and from November 2025, HSBC will remove the cashback for GIRO bill payments (having already cut it from 1% in August 2025).

HSBC Everyday Global Account nerfs GIRO payments

🏦 HSBC Everyday Global Account
Old T&Cs Till 31 Oct 25	New T&Cs From 1 Nov 25

HSBC has published a new set of T&Cs for the EGA, which take effect from 1 November 2025.

I’ve compared the two documents side-by-side using Draftable, but the tl;dr is that the 0.5% cashback for GIRO bill payments will be discontinued.

It’s hugely disappointing, but truth be told, I’m amazed it lasted as long as it did. HSBC was basically offering 0.5% off all your bills for basically nothing. Ironically, it even ended up subsidising other banks’ credit card bills, since HSBC credit cards were ineligible for the GIRO cashback!

Naturally, the GIRO benefit was also ripe for abuse, as some people engaged in, shall we say, off-label use. One common trick was to top up your StashAway account via eGIRO, then transfer the money out immediately, easily minting S$300 or S$500 each month.

HSBC took a dim view of such activities, as you might expect, and many offending accounts were shut down. It also belatedly added a clause to exclude GIRO bill payments made to any financial institutions, securities brokerages or dealers.

This change pretty much removes the biggest incentive to use the EGA, rendering it mostly irrelevant to me (though let me know if you see something I don’t).

How does the HSBC Everyday Global Account work?

Here’s a quick reminder of how the EGA works, at least until 31 October 2025.

EGA customers will earn an additional 1% cashback on HSBC Everyday Global Debit Card spending, and 0.5% cashback on GIRO bill payments when they:

• Deposit S$2,000 (Personal Banking) or S$5,000 (Premier/Jade) in fresh funds each month. (There is no holding requirement for these fresh funds; you can literally transfer them in today and out tomorrow)
• Make at least five eligible transactions, defined as:
  • Posted transactions in SGD made with a HSBC personal Credit Card;
  • Posted transactions made with a HSBC Everyday Global Debit Card;
  • GIRO bill payments in SGD made via an Eligible Account (excluding self-initiated GIRO payments made from HSBC online/mobile banking platform); and/or
  • Fund transfers from an Eligible Account to a non-HSBC account

The 1% cashback period starts from the day after both criteria are met, and runs till the end of the following calendar month. For example, if you meet the criteria on 5 April, the period will run from 6 April to 31 May. 

The 1% cashback for card spending and GIRO bill payments is capped at:

• S$300 per month (Personal Banking)
• S$500 per month (Premier/Jade)

Conclusion

From 1 November 2025, the HSBC Everyday Global Account will no longer award 0.5% cashback for GIRO bill payments, calling time on what was an incredibly lucrative promotion. 

There’s still one month left to make hay, and hopefully you’ll have some eGIRO transactions up your sleeves, because paper GIRO arrangements will likely be processed too late for one last hurrah.

(HT: KP)