HSBC Day to Day Account

HSBC Sunnybank opening an account – I went to HSBC Sunnybank today 31 March 2023 and Amy attended to me. Amy was calm polite and courteous explaining everything and answer all my queries. My business went smoothly quite different from what I experienced yesterday. I think yesterday was mainly due to the young teller at the front desk need customer service training. Thank you Amy you made my day.

HSBC Online Banking – Just tried to use HSBC Online Banking for the first time. I entered my my usename and password and navigated through the process of doing a bank transfer from HSBC to another Australian Bank. It is unnecessarily complex and, in parts ambiguous, but I can deal with that. I got down to the part where the bank sends you an SMS verification code and you enter it into the form.

Instead of this, the HSBC process involves installing an app in your phone, entering your login credentials.

Note: If your phone has malware on it, you have just sent the hackers your online username and password.

I am asked to create another account within the app with yet another password.

This password has hidden password restrictions so that you will need multiple attempts to guess

an acceptable password.

At this point, the computer online login has expired and I have to log in again and go through the

whole bank tranfer procedure I did before. This time, when I get to the verification code, I know to go back to the phone app. Unfortunately, the phone app has now timed out.

Logging in to the phone app again, I find that it does not simply have a "Generate code" button. You have to search for that feature. Eventually I select generate code and are prompted for my "other" online/phone password. It then asks me for the last 4 digits of the bank account that I want to transfer to. At this stage the

pressure is building because someone at HSBC is watching me with his finger on the "Timeout" button. I find the digits and enter them into the phone.

Success!! I now have the code that other banks can SMS to me in 3 seconds.

Back at the computer screen, I enter the code but nothing happens when I try to submit.

I try several times until I know nothing will happen. Searching through the overly complicated

form I notice that the "transfer to an australian bank" form has a field that defaults to "Telegraphic Transfer"

Changing this to "Bank Transfer" clears all the bank details so I have to search for and enter them again.

With all the right details double checked and the painfully obtained code in place I finally press submit.

The result: "Session Timed Out"

I will eventually go back and get that bank transfer done but I cannot suffer through this each time I need

to use online banking. Luckily, I still have my old bank account so I can start moving my salary payment and direct debits back to that.

This was the Online Saver account – Well HSBC changed the name of the Online Saver account to the day to day account, it is only a name change they say. What a load of rubbish, this saver account now pays virtually zero interest! I am moving my money to another bank that doesn't con their customers like this and reporting it to the banking ombudsman. It's Ok if your a new account holder and get $10 a month if you deposit enough The interest is so low

Good for some, not everyone – It was a major hassle opening the account due to overzealous HSBC staff being picky about my 100 points Id (the post office girl's signature didn't match on all places she signed, so had to do another application !!!). Once opened, they don't offer anything different compared with any other bank, however they did 2 things right. 1. Their computer systems are outdated so I had to log on twice to access the savings account and the credit card. I complained about it and they fixed it, quite amazed by that.

2. Once I had a saving account it was very just few mouse clicks and opened a foreign currency account, they offer $US, Euro and something else that didn't interest me. Electronic transfer to-from US took place same day.

I thought the foreign currency account was not matched by any other bank, so for that aspect I rated them 4 stars, not for the saving account. Prompt to fix issues, easy to open foreign currency account Customer service via email was not to the point. It felt the bank staff didn't even attempt to understand the issue.