I am not shocked. But can you post some of the comparisons so it is clear exactly what you are referring to. If you are talking about savings accounts, whether you get 0.01% at HSBC or 0.1% at another bank really doesnt make much of a difference. Yeah the other bank has 10 times better rate, but its effectively almost zero.
For time deposits, these vary and all bank including HSBC cook up weird and wonderful promos all the time that make comparison very difficult.
Reagarding mainland, are you referring to using putting RMB in a bank account in HK, or actually having RMB in a chinese bank across the border? It makes a big difference and you can get much better interest rates putting your RMB in China than just having a RMB account in HK.
Im not with HSBC for many different reasons, but the interest rate on accounts is not one of them. I think they suck for totally different reasons from you .