Best way to move money from US to HK

There's a couple of ways to move money around, but some are better than others.

From doing some internet research and some of my own investigation, here's the best way to do it if you use HSBC.

First, for your local Hong Kong HSBC account, be sure to setup a USD denominated account. You will transfer money to this USD account first. There should not be any charge for this service (if you transfer 10k from your US HSBC account, 10k will appear in your HK HSBC account). I transferred money using the Global View feature of my online account.

Now, if you were to try to do a transfer from your US HSBC account into your HK HSBC account directly from USD to HKD in one shot (transfer initiated from your US based online account), the charge will be about 1% over the current spot rate.

If you instead transfer from your US HSBC account to your HK HSBC account as USD first, then exchange from USD to HKD locally (using your HK based online account), the charge is about .15% over the current spot rate.