AQC courses have nothing to do with placement unfortunately. There are people I know who did an AQC a year ago and are still in the hold pool.
Unfortunately with HSBC it is black and white, you are paying them or you're not. They are not interested in how far along you are with your training, your position in the pool or anyone talking about green shoots of bull
.
2011 may be a line in the sand for recruitment but by then there will be a huge queue by then and 'normal' flow of cadets to the RHS won't be with us for a while!