Friday, June 30, 2006

HSBC increases its rate again

HSBC is what i call an aggressive bank, they work hard to give the best interest rate to their customers. They have increased their rates again (now its 5.05%). Couple of good things about HSBC are (from our experience)

1. Gives the highest interest rate (They always matches or exceeds competitor's rate within a week's time )
2. The online system works without much hassle or downtime.
3. No minimum balance or fees
4.They dont come out with deals for new customers alone. in their world every customer is equal
5. 24 hr customer serivce.

The bad side
1. Painful Fund transfer mechanism. it takes 3 days to transfer fund to or from your HSBC account
2. The design of the website could have been better. after all that is the only interface thru which you interact with HSBC online savings account. So some thought on improving the usability is required.
3. The account setup procedure is werid. First they send the account information in postal mail. then after one week username is send, then after yet another week the password comes!.

Other than that, i have no complaints. All in all, we believe opening account with HSBC has been an excellent decision.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why did you chose savings account? Will I be able to withdraw from the branch in Trivandrum when I go to India?

B&I said...

online savings account offer the highest APR. Although its savings account, it does not have restrictions on the number of withdrawals. It is similar to checking account. My understanding is that you wil be able to withdraw from the TVM branch. However you must be watchful about the conversion rate. i have emailed them for clarification.