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Sick of HSBC - what alternatives?

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  1. #21

    HSBC does not charge fees for online transfers from an account in Hong Kong to another bank in Hong Kong.


  2. #22

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    Thanks guys. I realize now I think the reason for the damn cheque book was that even if HSBC no longer charged to transfer money online, BOC charged for receiving money from another bank. They sneakily deducted something like 50HKD out of the final amount transferred as charge.


  3. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by traineeinvestor:
    HSBC does not charge fees for online transfers from an account in Hong Kong to another bank in Hong Kong.
    They definitely used to charge $35 for a slow (few days) transfer and even more for an express transfer up until very recently. As @timonoj points out, they were encouraging paper cheques over internet banking. It's great to see that FPS has finally forced these bastards into the age of the internet

    Standard Chartered's traditional slow service has always been free. But just recently it has become instant. So I can send money from my SCB account to my HSBC account, entering old fashioned bank account numbers, and it arrives in my HSBC account instantly now. I did this the other day because FPS is limited to $10k, I need to do quite a bit more than this so rather than do many days in a row I just did it the old fashioned way.

    SCB internet banking, old fashioned transfer, only allows input of 20 characters in the Payee Name box. My name is more than 20, I just input my first and last name and omitted the middle name. It still arrived safely in my HSBC account. So name matching is not compulsory at least in my experience. If I didn't have to do over $10k, I would have just entered my phone number and then no need to enter any name, bank account, etc at all.

    HSBC internet banking old fashioned transfers allows you to input up to 35 characters in the Payee name. Someone above mentioned they are switching to HSBC because of this. But I'm not sure this is really a good reason to switch banks, unless they have had a million other problems with their bank and this is just a "last straw"
    shri and vyral_143 like this.

  4. #24

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    fee waived for sending. do they waive fees for receiving ?


  5. #25

    You open HKD accounts, get one or two atm cards with different large banks, and foreign currency accounts with other banks, that's about it.You don't have to stick to famous banks for credit cards, there are many banks and credit companies in HK.


  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by freeier:
    fee waived for sending. do they waive fees for receiving ?
    Yes, the large sum of money I sent locally from my SC account to my HSBC account, using SC internet banking, old fashioned way entering my HSBC bank details (not FPS) was received in my HSBC account INSTANTLY and with no fees pocketed by either side.

  7. #27

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    Sep 2006
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    My HSBC RM sucks. I want to call to change my RM, but I feel bad doing so. In the 10 years I've been in Hong Kong and had a HSBC account, I have dealt with my RM maybe twice - once with setting up the account when I arrived in 2007, and the other with transferring shares (just a few months ago).

    My request was simple - I need to transfer my portfolio from a joint name account to a sole name account. HSBC RM gave me the runaround about how this was going to be difficult, the other joint name party had to sign and be present in their offices. Then he said, why don't you sell your shares and rebuy them with your sole name account. Like WTF, I was so mad. This dragged on for about six months until I told him, look dude, I will sign whatever you need me to sign but i need those shares transferred now. There's no way I'm going to resell and rebuy those shares so either 1. you get them transferred for me, or 2. you withdraw those shares in certificated form and I will deposit it in another bank.

    He finally got the message and got me to go to his office to sign 1 form - the process took less than 5 minutes (actually longer because he didn't even prepare the form in advance, I had to wait for him to print it out). I didn't even need the other joint account holder to be there (she was overseas). He was just trying to avoid to do any work I had for him. And I don't even bother him at all!

    The only thing that hasn't made me change my mind is that he doesn't call to sell me any products which is the only advantage to keeping him. I do all my banking electronically (love the new HSBC easy invest app), and I just need a bank that can do the daily stuff free of charge.

    Have been thinking about switching banks - I'm not sure Citigold private client is going to be better than HSBC jade. I think it is really luck of the draw and which RM you're assigned...


  8. #28

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    @howill - Ignore your RM. Send a request through to customer support using the web based contact system. In that message, specifically state that you need an experienced customer support person to review your request and respond in detail.

    I've had some amazingly specific responses come through from back office customer support, that RMs and others had no clue about.

    A MAJOR problem is that the RMs and back end customer service do not seem to use a proper knowledge base system and RMs tend to rely on random info / speculation - which is f'ing scary at times.

    And yes - luck of draw.

    howill likes this.

  9. #29

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    My relationship with HSBC -->Committed first few two or three months----> Open -----> complicated---> break-up. Happened over the course of 4 years. The only thing I like about them is the internet banking.

    Happy with SCB now.


  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by hannah01:
    Happy with SCB now.
    Hmm. I just have the credit card with them, not the account, which remains in HSBC. A month after I got the card, I started to receive tiny fraudulent transactions that were being rejected by SCB. They suggested to cancel the card immediately , which I did. They sent a week later a new card. Now this card is still waiting to get the autopay transferred/reactivated from the other card. Which means each month I need to go pay it manually, by hard cash or cheque. They didn't tell me of this, which made me incur in a delayed payment charge. I'm still waiting for autopay...And I don't even want to think when they'll be able to transfer octopus AAVS.

    So I just wonder...is a normal account at SCB any better? Because they really seem to be dropping the ball with the credit card.