Back to the 20th century

Posted on August 17, 2005
Tags: General rant |

I admit I’ve been spolit when it comes to banking services. I’ve had the pleasure, yes, pleasure of working with HSBC in Hong Kong for quite some time and nothing seems to compare to the level of service and flexibility they offer. The send my banking mail to any country in the world I move to. It took them less than 4 working days to issue me a replacement card including sending it from HK to Singapore with express courier. When I call them from overseas they offer to call me back so that I don’t pay the international calls.
No US banks, Singaporean banks, Israeli banks and definitely not New Zealand banks come near. I’m now banking with a local bank here in NZ for convenience purposes as there is no HSBC branch in this city and here are some ‘highlights’:

1. ATM withdrawal limit: US$500 a day. No matter where you withdraw from, yes even withdrawing using PLUS system from my HK account.
2. No International money transfers available in online banking. WTF? You have to walk into a branch and fill out forms for this.
3. I have about 4 sets of different logins and passwords.
4. You pay a fee EVERY time you withdraw money from YOUR OWN bank’s ATM machine. WTF no. 2.
5. ATM machines spit out only NZ$20 (= US$14) notes. WTF no. 3

And that’s just from 3 months of using banks here. I’m sure I’ll find out some more of these.

Comments

2 Responses to “Back to the 20th century”

  1. C. Maoxian on August 21st, 2005 3:53 am

    I was tardy about adding you to my Bloglines Blogroll, but now that I have you can be sure that I’ll chime in from time to time with inane comments. ;-)

    I agree with you on all points about HSBC — they are the dream bank, especially in Hongkong. We have used them all over the world, and were ecstatic to find that they have two branches here in Beijing now (very recently established).

    If you are a fat rich bastard you can qualify for their “Premiere” service, which means you get all kinds of perks including (here in Beijing) an exclusive area of the bank to do your business with stuffed chairs, drinks, and people to wait on you. I always joke with the (very lovely) teller that I have no business, but just came by for something to eat and to chat.

  2. Trader Eyal » Blog Archive » HSBC Does it again on October 29th, 2006 2:36 pm

    […] I mentioned a couple of times before that I really like HSBC bank. Today I had another pleasant reminder. I was at the Ben Gurion Airport in Israel for a couple of hours today as I had a lift from my sis AND the flight was delayed by an hour. So I tried getting into the lounge, alas none of my credit cards qualified for complimentary entry since they’re all from overseas and paying US$25 didn’t seem very appealing to me. So I ended up on one of the desks outside which had power and let me go online. A nice suprise awaited me in the Turkish airport though, as I am now writing from the very nice The Advantage Club Lounge owned by HSBC, very nicely stocked with soft drinks, pastries, desserts, beer on tap and liqueurs. All, of course, at no charge, compliments of the HSBC card I hold from back when I lived in Hong Kong. […]

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