Exhibit 34.1

 

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

 

The Board of Directors

HSBC Finance Corporation:

 

We have examined management’s assessment, included in the accompanying “Report on Compliance With Applicable Servicing Criteria Pursuant To Item 1122 of Regulation AB Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934” that HSBC Finance Corporation (the Company) complied with the servicing criteria set forth in Item 1122(d) of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation AB applicable to the servicing of asset backed securitization transactions secured by private label credit card receivables, except for the criteria set forth in Sections 1122(d)(1)(ii), 1122(d)(1)(iii), 1122(d)(2)(i), 1122(d)(2)(iii), 1122(d)(2)(vi), 1122(d)(3)(i)(D), 1122(d)(4)(i), 1122(d)(4)(ii), 1122(d)(4)(iv), 1122(d)(4)(vi), 1122(d)(4)(vii), 1122(d)(4)(viii), 1122(d)(4)(ix), 1122(d)(4)(x), 1122(d)(4)(xi), 1122(d)(4)(xii), 1122(d)(4)(xiii), 1122(d)(4)(xiv), and 1122(d)(4)(xv) which the Company has determined are notapplicable to the Company’s activities (excluding these criteria, the Applicable Servicing Criteria) that are identified in management’s “Report on Compliance With Applicable Servicing Criteria Pursuant To Item 1122 of Regulation AB Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934” (the Platform), as of and for the year ended December 31, 2008. Management is responsible for the Company’s compliance with the Applicable Servicing Criteria. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on management’s assessment about the Company’s compliance based on our examination.

 

Our examination was conducted in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States)****and, accordingly, included examining, on a test basis, evidence about the Company’s compliance with the Applicable Servicing Criteria and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances.  Our examination included testing selected asset-backed transactions and securities that comprise the Platform, testing selected servicing activities related to the Platform, and determining whether the Company processed those selected transactions and performed those selected activities in compliance with the Applicable Servicing Criteria.  Furthermore, our procedures were limited to the selected transactions and servicing activities performed by the Company during the period covered by this report.  Ourprocedures were not designed to determine whether errors may have occurred either prior to or subsequent to our tests that may have affected the balances or amounts calculated or reported by the Company during the period covered by this report for the selected transactions or any other transactions. We believe that our examination provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.  Our examination does not provide a legal determination on the Company’s compliance with the Applicable Servicing Criteria.

 

In our opinion, management’s assessment that the Company complied with the Applicable Servicing Criteria as of and for the year ended December 31, 2008 is fairly stated, in all material respects.

 

/s/ KPMG LLP

 

Chicago, Illinois

March 16, 2009