I'm starting to think this falls into one of two camps.

1. The press release notes HSBC will exit "certain Premier banking customers (those with balances below US$75k)". So that can be straightforward to mean folks qualifying only on direct deposit are cut. This seems to be the consensus here.
2. After several chat conversations and talking to my relationship manager they all said having 75K is one way to qualify for Premier and I qualify on direct deposit and therefore my account isn't moving. If that is true then that would lead me to believe HSBC is cutting accounts who don't meet any Premier qualifications but choose to pay the monthly service fee instead. I'm not sure how many of these accounts are out there. There are similar reports in this reddit thread with folks saying they don't have 75k in deposits but have been told they aren't moving.

Seems like all we can do is wait and see.