A year ago, HSBC launched its cross-border payments app, Zing, aiming to show fintechs in this space what Europe’s largest bank could accomplish. Now, Zing has shut down, leaving many to question whether a major international bank has any role to play in cross-border payments.
Zing was designed as a standalone product that didn’t require an HSBC account to use. The app and its accompanying debit card let users hold funds in over 10 currencies, send money in more than 30 currencies, and transact across 200 countries and territories worldwide.
HSBC was the first major legacy bank to compete in the consumer cross-border space. Its competitors, Wise and Revolut, are both standalone fintechs unaffiliated with any bank. However, they partnered with larger players to expand their offerings. Wise teamed up with Swift to facilitate cross-border payments, while Revolut worked with Visa to develop a cross-border business platform.
More importantly, both apps were already well-established in the market by the time Zing launched. Revolut claimed to have reached 45 million global retail customers, while Wise reported 11.4 million users as of September 2024.
While HSBC did not release current user numbers for Zing, it’s clear the app struggled to gain traction in the marketplace. During its first two months, only 36,000 users in the UK downloaded Zing, according to app data intelligence platform Apptopia. In comparison, Revolut and Wise saw 1.1 million and 203,000 downloads, respectively, during that period of time.
A “Me-Too” Product
By and large, HSBC was never able to create a compelling case for users to switch to its offering.
“Zing’s attempt to compete directly with Wise and Revolut was essentially a ‘me-too’ product, struggling to carve out a unique value proposition,” Ritesh Jain, former COO of HSBC, wrote in a blog post for Finextra. “In a market where consumers expect speed, transparency, and low-cost services, merely replicating existing offerings rarely works.”
Another roadblock for Zing was the heavy compliance burden associated with cross-border payments. While its fintech competitors were able to be more nimble and build regulatory frameworks as issues arose, HSBC struggled to navigate these complex requirements. In fact, shortly after launching Zing, HSBC expanded its partnership with Silent Eight, an AI-powered compliance firm, to enhance its compliance operations.
HSBC spent two years building Zing’s infrastructure before introducing the product as part of a series of cross-border offerings from the bank in recent years. Global Money was introduced in 2020, which offered existing HSBC customers a fee-free currency service. A year later, HSBC Global Wallet was announced. These products continue to operate, but Zing has been zapped.
