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Another HSBC Rant

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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Paxbritannia:
    Always keep things simple with the banks and don't volunteer too much information, otherwise you risk causing confusion.
    At the risk of digressing,

    (Disclaimer: I am British Born Ethnic Chinese).

    You have to realise that a LOT of HK. Chinese people can only process a bite of information at once, a certain department (and even our line managers) on whom which my colleagues and I greatly depend and contact almost daily need all of our information in chunks (Chinese/ English) and I don't work for a bank. You can't explain things the same way you would to any other person in your home countries. Even if you think that what you are saying to them is perfectly pared down to the bare bone essentials, there is every chance that even in Cantonese it's overloading them with information. This particular department is very surly and rude about the fact that they are essentially simpletons.

    Please contrast the following examples:

    Most people:

    " I have guests here at XYZ. Hotel who would like to join our AM. ABC. tour tomorrow please, 2 adults 1 child, can you please tell me when they will return to this hotel tomorrow night."

    Department in question: (requires chunking)

    "I am calling from XYZ. Hotel."
    "I have three guests."
    "2 adults 1 child"
    "The child is XXX years old."
    "They wish to join the ABC tour tomorrow."
    "It's the morning ABC. tour"
    "Can you please tell me what time they will return to the hotel tomorrow?"
    "They don't want to get back too late."
    Cue surly and rude questions about my ability to remember the return times for over 7 different hotels.
    Cue phone being slammed down.
    AsianXpat0 likes this.

  2. #22

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    Original Post Deleted
    Thanks, yeah I will get my wife to go and do something similar. But I want the premier level, share trading account, open an account with HSBC Australia at the same time, and the global view function that goes along with it. So I might get a few more questions along the way but try to keep it simple

    Just for background, I have some AUD investments in HK now paying me small AUD dividends every month. I want to send AUD to AUD in my Australian bank account. I use instarem to transfer HKD to AUD which is great, but it cannot do AUD to AUD. So my end goal is to get this global view function from HSBC to make small AUD transfers and get the funds into my local Aus bank account without so many TT fees etc. Putting in my wifes name just another tactic for family tax/estate purposes as DeletedUser pointed out. But I would just do everything with Standard Chartered if they had something like the global view function.

  3. #23

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    @traineeinvestor I thought DBS' online access is pretty good and I am loving their new mobile banking app.

    What's the deficiencies you have come across?


  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    Just for background, I have some AUD investments in HK now paying me small AUD dividends every month. I want to send AUD to AUD in my Australian bank account. I use instarem to transfer HKD to AUD which is great, but it cannot do AUD to AUD. So my end goal is to get this global view function from HSBC to make small AUD transfers and get the funds into my local Aus bank account without so many TT fees etc. Putting in my wifes name just another tactic for family tax/estate purposes as DeletedUser pointed out. But I would just do everything with Standard Chartered if they had something like the global view function.
    Global View and Global Transfer @ HSBC is overrated in my opinion...that said, is Global Transfer from AUD to AUD free of cost with HSBC?

    One option you may want to consider - check if they have a Multi-Currency Debit Card issued in Hong Kong for your customer level and then you can spend your dividend of HSBC HK AUD account when you go home.

    https://www.hsbc.com.hk/jade/twelve-...cy-debit-card/

    I tried to look but the HSBC HK website doesn't seem to have a search function
    bdw likes this.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by rkenia852:
    @traineeinvestor I thought DBS' online access is pretty good and I am loving their new mobile banking app.

    What's the deficiencies you have come across?
    Could not ever (i.e. not once) actually log on. I kept getting the message "The system is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." over and over and over again ... for weeks. The hapless helpless desk insisted I was was entering my password and/or login name incorrectly but even when they conceded I wasn't quite that clueless and agreed that the system would have said my login name/password was incorrect instead of the system being unavailable they had no idea how to fix the problem.

    This went on for weeks, during which I went into the brach and applied for a new login name and password with the same result and the same inability of DBS to solve the problem.

    DBS is the only financial institution in ay country I have had any kind of problem with internet access.

    Looking forward to the day when my last DBS mortgage is paid off and I can close the account.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    79

    After using HSBC for many years and tolerating their "customer service", I have given up and moved over to Citibank. The local staff at Citi are more helpful, in my experience, have better English. For OP's purposes I am not sure how useful Citibank would be, but I can see how frustrating it would have been trying to explain the Australian tax system to HSBC.

    I feel that banks nowadays follow a cookie cutter approach and don't handle well for things that are slightly outside the norm.

    Paxbritannia likes this.

  7. #27

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    Original Post Deleted
    Unfortunately regulated entities tend to lack competition.

  8. #28

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    Original Post Deleted
    True, but I meant on the dimension you cared about, viz., client service. I heard of exactly one bank overseas with low deposit rates but a focus on delighting customers. Basically many otherwise decent companies are not client focused because they don't need to be. Telcos being another example. Maybe what the customer thinks matters less when you need the service and the number of competitors is constrained by scale or regulation?

  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by loser:
    After using HSBC for many years and tolerating their "customer service", I have given up and moved over to Citibank. The local staff at Citi are more helpful, in my experience, have better English. For OP's purposes I am not sure how useful Citibank would be, but I can see how frustrating it would have been trying to explain the Australian tax system to HSBC.

    I feel that banks nowadays follow a cookie cutter approach and don't handle well for things that are slightly outside the norm.
    Citi also has a global view function too.
    bdw likes this.

  10. #30

    Join Date
    Nov 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by traineeinvestor:
    Could not ever (i.e. not once) actually log on. I kept getting the message "The system is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." over and over and over again ... for weeks. The hapless helpless desk insisted I was was entering my password and/or login name incorrectly but even when they conceded I wasn't quite that clueless and agreed that the system would have said my login name/password was incorrect instead of the system being unavailable they had no idea how to fix the problem.

    This went on for weeks, during which I went into the brach and applied for a new login name and password with the same result and the same inability of DBS to solve the problem.

    DBS is the only financial institution in ay country I have had any kind of problem with internet access.

    Looking forward to the day when my last DBS mortgage is paid off and I can close the account.
    i think it could be something to do with your cache as well.. i was having similar issues trying to book an air tix on the scoots website and a 'reset clear' of the cache got it done...

    on DBS site.. i actually think its a fairly good one.. so far no issues using it..
    managed to add overseas payee for money transfer etc.etc.. even the fixed deposit rate we can get on dbs site is far far better than what i used to experience in all the 3 banks in Singapore.. those banks made you go down to the branch to enjoy the better rates so they can try to pitch some high fee products to you..

    on simple functionality, i actually like the one in ocbc singapore where they show you how much you owe (i.e. credit card) and how much money you have spent from your bank account in the last 3 months or so... neat stuffs for a one glance check of financial health..
    traineeinvestor and shri like this.

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