www.hfc.com

Founded as early as 1878 in Minnesota, HFC-Household Finance Corporation was once one of the earliest and largest consumer finance companies, which provided it customers with instalment plan-to pay back the loan by a regular monthly amount instead of an once payment on a due date. However, as a result of the merger dates back to 2004, HFC-Household Finance Corporation was absorbed by Household International, Inc. and upon the merger, Household International, Inc. changed its name into HSBC Finance Corporation assuming all the obligations of Household Finance Corporation.

After the Merger, HSBC Finance Corporation has expanded its business significantly-both in the range of services and products and in the geographical locations: new branches in Brazil, India, Argentina and elsewhere. Now in 2009, due to the difficulty in the credit crisis, especially in the slumming mortgage market, HSBC made the difficult decision that it would close the majority of network in the U.S. (all 800 HFC and Beneficial U.S. offices) In March 2009, it announced its discontinuity in accepting any new loan applications and that it is closing all branch offices.

If you are a current customer of HFC, when you see the announcement, you must be anxious about what would happen to your loan, right? As far as I can see, there is no need to worry about it. Your loan will carry on being valid since HFC will continue to manage existing portfolios and help customers with their loan payment and home preservation. As it announced, all branch offices would be closed as soon as their commitments to customers are fulfilled.

You can see the announcement on the upper-left corner of the website which titled: Our branches are closing, but our support for you is going. Although in this time that the company is in a difficult situation, it still sticks to its tradition of caring which earns itself the trust of people and announces that it will ‘remain fully committed to servicing your account with the utmost care and attention’. Therefore, although ceasing accepting new applications, almost everything for the existing customers stays the same.

Account Management
To manage your account, all you will have to do is to log in with your account name(not case sensitive) and password. Then everything is at your fingertip. You can view your account summary, statement, and payment address that you saved; also, to add a account, sign up for Alerts and update account information is possible.

Online Payment
Although in-branch payments will be impossible due to the closure of them, you can log in online anytime to make payments. 3 simple and guided steps, which takes only a couple of minutes to complete will get the payment done. Visit the website of HFC, click on Manage Account, then you will see how it works. After filling your account and personal information
Solution to Payment Difficulties in the forms, and authorizing a debit transaction from your bank, click to submit the form, the payment is completed. Easy and fast.

Solution to payment difficulties
Being well aware of difficulties that may arise during the payment process, HFC provides a team of experienced Loan Specialists to assist its customers in solving payment problems. You can find well-written payment difficulties FAQs on the website, and apart from that, you can leave an online message and get a reply in your e-mail inbox. Besides, other professional tips such as how to avoid a foreclosure are available.

Resource support
Apart from solution to payment difficulties, you can get insight in consumer credit education and how life events can affect your finances here.

Consumer Credit Education
It contains articles encompassing almost every aspect of personal finance. Topics of them include how to make good financial moves amid bad financial news, how to protect your credit when life happens, things to think about when applying for a loan and etc.
Life events
What would happen to your finance situation if you get married, or graduate from university or lose your job. Articles informing of how these events can affect your finance and providing you tips to make right financial decisions during such changes are available here.

EZ Pay Plus:
As the announcement on the website goes, the closure of branches will not affect the automatic payments of customers who are enrolled in EZ Pay Plus. Your authorized payments are still valid and will be executed on due date. You don’t need to do anything about it.

In sum, HFC is a committed financial institution that provides its customer with superior service and products, even in its most difficult time. It cares for its customers, and spares no effort in providing with its customers all it could think of, and all they may need.