Here in San Diego, HSBC is, or at this point, was a major player in the auto loan financing industry. Over the last few years, HSBC had purchased and merged into their operations, the auto loan portfolios of numerous smaller lenders throughout California, and presumably, the entire U.S. We have known for over a year now that HSBC was desirable of now getting out of the auto loan business, but until today, we didn’t know how they would ‘get out’. In today’s San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper (yes, I still read an actual newspaper) there is a report that HSBC Finance Corp. has agreed to sell their auto loan portfolio to Santander Consumer USA. The article goes on to state that the purchase price was $904 million, which included $1 billion in receivables, and an additional $6.7 billion in auto loan receivables which Santander will service on behalf of HSBC. I suspect there will be a fee charged for managing the $6.7 billion portfolio. Structurally, HSBC maintained three physical offices, one here in San Diego, the others in Lewisville, TX, and the HSBC corporate office in Illinois. HSBC employed 700 people, and those employees will be transferred to Santander.

John C. Colwell
Debt Relief Legal Clinic
San Diego, CA
www. debtclinic.com
Member, Board of Directors, NACBA
www.nacba.org