HSBC Business Reviews

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HSBC Business
★☆☆☆☆
1.4
16.0% of users recommend this
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Latest Reviews

“Cheater fraud time waster ”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Rehan07 on 29/12/2021

From several months try to contact them after few hours waiting they put the phone down.bank is giving same no to contact. Few time someone pick up the phone put it back . neverever use them

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“ABSOLUT SHAMBLE!!!!!!! ”

★☆☆☆☆

written by ScottHurst on 30/06/2018

I started a new company and applied for an HSBC business account. I have completed everything my end but it has now been months and HSBC have done nothing with it!! Every time I get through to some one on the phone and ask how much longer it will take they tell me they say they do not guaranty time scales. I have been left using my personal current account to run my business which is going to give my accountant to have a breakdown... I have written this review while in a phone que to speak to HSBC customer service.... ABSOLUT F G SHAMBLE!!!!!!!

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“Forever on hold”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 01/09/2017

HSBC is a bank where customer service has been cut to below the minimum. Its hard enough to find the right number to call on their website and when you do you will be on hold forever. And I mean forever - unless BT cut you off first. An account for people with time to burn. They have an automated assistant on the website which utterly hopeless.

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“Incompetent, arrogant and rude”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Garrisonml338 on 09/08/2017

We are a small firm of solicitors and have used HSBC for over 10 years. Initially the relationship was good. We had an accessible business manager and the local branch was helpful. The first big shock was when they sent £1.7 million to a mortgage lender on a property sale instead of the £700K owing and the £1 million balance to the seller. When we challenged this monstrous error they responded that they would get "our" money back. We pointed out that the lost money was HSBC's money since they had no instruction to send the £1 million to the lender and faced with immediate recovery proceedings they refunded the money from their own funds. It took them three weeks to recover their money from the lender! Since then we have encountered many errors with CHAPS payment instructions. Staff at the local branch are always ignorant, unhelpful and impolite. The final straw was when we were no longer able to access one of our accounts on the HSBC website. The response to our logon was just "sorry". It caused us a serious difficulty as it resulted in a late payment. Our complaint was met with arrogance: we were told that HSBC blocks access without warning when an account is not accessed for three months and that a complete new application was required regardless that all of our other accounts were still being accessed with the same logon. We are now moving our business accounts to Metro Bank where we have 7 day service by polite staff and a usable internet service.

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“AVOID-BEWARE- FOR BUSINESS BANKING NEW ACCOUNT ”

★☆☆☆☆

written by hnCoughlin379 on 26/06/2017

Applied ONLINE for a start-up UK company, took over three months, dozens of emails and phone calls, no one answers or if get answered some time they don't know what to do next, 3 times visited branch, even branch manager failed to find out what going on. Keep asking to sign American IRS W-8 form for 2 months. I refused and told them I am British and have no business now or in future with US and my accountant refused as well and advise that its unusual demand by HSBC and not required by law in UK. after two months HSBC told it was wrong form asked to fill another form which I did. after over three months received calls that we don't open the account for consulting and investment purpose. They could told this immediately after application and I would open account with another bank without problem. Its not only disappointing but somewhat scary to see such costumer service. You can not get hold of any one who knows what to do.

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“Absolute Joke of a Bank and Application Process”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Nigelg480 on 25/06/2016

Horrendous application process, every call resulted in being provided in different information requirements. Each call result in a 'sorry you were told wrong information'. Don't hold your breath for return calls, I am still waiting on 3 I was promised. Getting through to speak to anyone results in a 30 minute on hold process. After a number of weeks of being messed about I went to Santander and had an active account within days. HSBC have lost my business, would never consider them again.

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“Antiquated, and definitely not 'the world's local bank'!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Felicitys374 on 30/04/2016

Apart from all the other irritations that other reviewers have mentioned, the most irritating thing by far is that you can only make international transfers between 8am and 3.30pm Monday - Friday. I find it hard to believe I am even writing that in 2016! This makes the account next to useless for businesses with international suppliers, which I would guess includes a large number of SMEs these days. Our suppliers in California do not open until 5pm UK time, so when we get an invoice from them on a Friday we, rather embarrassingly, can do nothing to pay it until the following Monday. I am pretty sure 'The world's local bank' was some kind of in-joke that someone in their marketing department took seriously. DO NOT get an HSBC business bank account if you ever plan on doing any international business, or even if you have any hopes or plans for your business to grow.

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“review from plymouth”

★★★★★

written by 148Rankin on 05/09/2014

I was very well received by a young representative which was quite happy to help me in opening a bank account. She programed me for Friday at 10 a.m where I will have an appointment with the Bussines Specialist in Plymouth

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“in praise of HSBC CSR”

★★★★★

written by dale evans on 13/05/2014

In contrast to my experience of Natwest online CSR ( ignored repeated query, impossible to find a phone contact) and Barclays ( astonishingly rude, thoroughly unhelpful, CSR in rgds to my reluctance to post off my passport to them for proof of ID), HSBC responded to my online complaint (a minor one re 0845 calls costing unnecessarily high amounts because of long response time) by hard copy letter. They replied in courteous detail. This was no 'we care about your business' brush off. Unfortunately they only addressed half of my complaint(length of wait for call pick up). So I am yet to discover why all businesses now make it a cost to us to lodge a legitimate complaint re their actions. Howeever come July the banks, at least, will no longer be allowed to do this. For which: 'Hurrah'.

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“HSBC business account application, inconsistent info”

★☆☆☆☆

written by edwin.van.der.pol on 27/03/2014

I made my business account at HSBC online application at the beginning of March. Subsequently, I went into the Branch with my passport and prove of address. The Business Manager told me that everything was fine on his end and that it would be reviewed in Leicester for final decision, he said that it is looking quite straight forward. During this process I rang to find out the status of the application and found out on 26/03/14 that my application was deleted, they could not find my files. They asked me to create a new application and to ring them again. I did this and then they told me that they found my first application but that the Business Manager in the branch declined it and therefore it was deleted from the system. The telephone customer service advised me that it was likely a mistake and they promised to ring me back to explain what happened this was also on 26th, they didn’t contact me as promised and on 27/03 I rang again, (again waiting almost 45min prior being contacted with the department). Then they said that they will contact the right department who then get back to me, 5 hours later I received a ring with a reference to ring the customer service dep. I rang and they said sorry without any reason given it shows that the application has been declined. So I thought ok I visit the branch once more, visited the Business Manager and he told me that he has nothing to do with it and Leicester made the decision. Many phone calls, waiting time and stress as a result and no business account. They couldn’t give any reasons why they acted this way. I am from abroad; live her for almost 9 years, held a job for the last 7 years, low mortgage, and no debts at all. Great credit rating, good business plan and prospects for the business, no loans required and just a prospect of good incoming revenue, do you get this?? I surely don’t, very frustrating and unhelpful process when you setting up a new business, I just going to open one business account with my own bank.

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Th1234's Response to edwin.van.der.pol's Review

Written on: 05/04/2014

You have to remember that HSBC in Mexico and US was accused of money laundering hundreds of millions. Because of their own actions, they now make like difficult of ordinary folk. Don't waste your time with them. They are understaffed, under-resourced, and the Head Office make arbitrary decisions based on whats in front of them (and are risk averse). They are a bank in decline and chaos and ranked no.1 for worst customer service. Give it a year or two when the Bank of China comes available on the international market and see all the business disappear from them

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“Amateurs ”

★☆☆☆☆

written by sdellboy on 26/03/2014

My business banked with HSBC for a year and found the service to be very amateurish. The website is a joke. If you want a bank to work with you this certainly is not the one to go with. My business manager looked about 12 and had as about as much authority as the cleaners. I switched to Barclys who so far have been excellent. At least the first year was free so I didn't have to pay for it.

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Th1234's Response to sdellboy's Review

Written on: 05/04/2014

Agree 100%. If you want to do simple things, and it's done by computer(ie you don't rely on their staff it works). They have been on a cost cutting exercise, they don't want retail banking, they want big business money. My business manager never spoke to my except one per year to tick a box. Open a new account, it's a nightmare. Their staff lie through their teeth or don't have any authority to make a decision which is made at Head Office, so you can't believe any thing they say. They just are people who act as an interface with no brains.HSBC has become the 'Dixons' of the banking world. Poor goods, poorly trained staff, and poor customer service. Avoid at all costs

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“Blood out of a stone”

★☆☆☆☆

written by AngelaReview on 22/10/2013

Getting money out of these guys is like getting blood out of a stone. I went to get a loan; with a very good solid basis and they drew out the entire process ten fold. Totally unacceptable and not what I expected from what I thought was a respectable company.

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“Good experience”

★★★★★

written by on 17/11/2012

Have been business banking with them for 12 years and have had good service

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“Refused overdraft despite 5 years with them”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 03/09/2012

I started the account in 2007. I have paid fees and paid all of my debts on time. Had only one loan which I paid off early. Have had 2 babies in the last two years and this year I wanted a back up amount while I had my third intend to be back at work 6 weeks after birth. Despite 15K per month going into the account for 5 months this year I got refused even 2K overdraft. Have appointment on Thursday with Barclays to get out of this situation. No allowance for personal circumstances and no flexibility.

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“irritating website and service”

★☆☆☆☆

written by barrett on 02/11/2011

I use their online version, their website drives me crazy, it's so unintuitive, it shows you a silly and useless generic balance of your account, then you have to click around about 5 times before you get to see the details, which is why you log in anyways. Their message system is USELESS,no matter what you ask them, even generic questions about their donkey website, they reply 'please contact us by phone'.

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Th1234's Response to barrett's Review

Written on: 24/03/2014

thats because they make money on the call charges by being a premium rate number. most banks you would think would call back their 'valued' customers. not hsbc. As a customer you are not valued. Only if you pay lots of money in charges, and can keep paying, then you are valued.Otherwise you are a pain. I've been with them for many years. The service has got progressively worse over the last 5 yrs. Use them at your own peril. If you want a simple account, fair enough - but there are better banks/building societies. HSBCs business model is flawed. They forgot what they are about and have become 'functionally stupid' as an organisation

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“HSBC have the best internet banking service”

★★★★★

written by AK2011 on 09/10/2011

I'm really happy to using the HSBC internet banking service. The site is fast, hassle free, user freindly and the most importent thing is SECURED. HSBC provide a security device for it. So if anyone hack your password he/she will not be able to access to your account without the security device. Alternativly, if anyone stole your security device, without your password it can't be possible to access. I am really feeling good to banking with HSBC :)

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“Consistent - Consistently bad, that is!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by EFixmer on 22/09/2011

The company I founded have been banking with HSBC from the start, about 7 years ago. Throughout that period, I can hardly recall any single instance where they have provided even adequate service. We are based at one of their main branches in the City of London, so one would assume that this would be one of their better teams. The lack of knowledge of their staff about fairly mundane issues is astonishing. We are now experts on walking HSBC staff through their HSBC-internal systems on a wide range of topics, such as for example dealing with non-convertible currencies. One running joke over the years has been the identity and whereabouts of our account manager. For some puzzling reason, they have never been actually based at our branch. Due to what seems like continuous restructuring, that person's identity has also changed a number of times. We are yet to meet any of them. Another representative anecdote of their shortcomings occurred when we had a 'regular' review meeting (our only one so far). Some investment 'specialist' attended, and we agreed on a second meeting to discuss pension related options, on the strict and repeatedly expressed condition that they would send us the relevant material beforehand. Unsurprisingly, despite 2 email reminders, this never happened. Their tagline 'The World's Local Bank' is sadly accurate. We originally chose HSBC partly because we believed that their global presence would make opening and operating accounts in other countries more efficient. In reality, their operations in different countries only seem to have their logo in common. Oh, and their inadequacy: in China, for instance, we have found them significantly less efficient than the local, state-controlled banks. They are quite efficient at charging high fees for any service, so I guess they are a well-run business in that sense. We have finally had enough and have decided to take our business elsewhere.

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“I am a very internet savvy user having used 3+...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 20/03/2011

I am a very internet savvy user having used 3+ different personal internet banks for many years. However I find the HSBC business banking very difficult to navigate. there own customer service even admitted it 'wasn't the best' and "the let themselves down". I couldn't put in better myself.

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“For a small business pathetic intrest rates on my...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 26/02/2011

For a small business pathetic intrest rates on my savings account, I get £3 a month on a 60k balance and I also handle lots of small cheque for £5-10, the profit on which all goes to HSBC as they charge too much to bank cheques.

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“I agree with many of the comments already put forward,...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 07/02/2011

I agree with many of the comments already put forward, about 4 or 5 ago customer service became a low priority for hsbc, the phone service put in place is not fit for purpose. I am sick of explaining myself to different members of staff, only to be transfered or told to ring back another day. I tried to circumvent the phone system by contacting my local branch, but they are totally impotent, unable to action anything on the account. The charges when over your overdraft are ridiculous, they appear to have deliberately made it more painfull after being told they were charging unfairly

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