HSBC or Bank of China?

[JuicyTNA]

Moving to HK and need to choose a place to bank with. I have a job lined up to begin Dec 2010 with monthly salary being approx 36K. I'll need to regularly wire money back to Canada to pay off a student line of credit and would also like to get a HSBC platinum card (heard it had many perks) but not sure if I'd qualify to apply for one?

TIA!

[Football16]

HSBC is easier to transfer money to/from Canada in my limited experience. Better than Hang Seng.

Not sure of the other.

What does JuicyTNA mean? I can only imagine.

[JuicyTNA]

LOL! It's actually just Juicy from Juicy Couture and another brand called TNA (Canadian) put together. But yeeeea....I know the other meaning too....didnt think of that when I started using this as my online name yeaars ago :P

[carolynhk]

HSBC more convenient - easy for international transfers especially if premium account. Also more branches around in my opinion.

[arashikage]

Platinum card, that required an annual income to exceed HKD250,000, according to my prior application.

If you have HKD 1mil and above, open Premier A/C @ HSBC, and a Premier only Platinum card is acompanied with the successful opening of such Acc

[Loz_2]

I thought it meant juicy tits n arse
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[Expatriate]

HSBC has branches and ATMs all over Asia, where you can draw cash directly from your savings account and don't need the much more expensive cash advance via credit card.

The Premier Account is very expensive if you have less than HKD 1 mio. It costs you about HKD 380 per month!

The Platinum Card is also not free of charge. You pay for all those "perks".

My advice: get an entry level account that costs nothing and a Visa Card, especially when you still have to pay off loans. HK is expensive and with HKD 36K you can't get far.

True expats are different, they pay just 50k for rent, or lets say their company pays, and then they still worry about whether they can survive on 80k per month.

[PDLM]

ATMs all over Asia, where you can draw cash directly from your savings account and don't need the much more expensive cash advance via credit card.

Eh? This is true of almost any bank ATM card using the Link or Cirrus networks. Cash advances on credit cards are an absolute last resort if your normal ATM card fails for some reason.

[hktraveller]

..the Premier Account is very expensive if you have less than HKD 1 mio....

If you want to get it cheaper, in Vietnam they only require 50000 USD. Can be on a USD account and freely wired out any time.

[PDLM]

Link or Cirrus networks.

I meant Plus, not Link, sorry.