written by dommiz on 15/08/2012
The HSBC InvestDirect service is a very basic share trading platform, with none of the functions that one would expect with a wealth management service that HSBC Premier aspires to be. It looks terrible, uses ancient technology sometimes (such as the past two days) is completely inaccessible.
There is very little integration between the share service and the Premier ban accounts - even transferring money is difficult to do.
The service will not let you examine statements older than 12 months, review contract notes and trades or even download the current portfolio as a CSV file. The Portfolio view does not include purchase price or amount invested - so you must run your own spreadsheet system to keep track of performance. But best of luck with that, as the site is designed so it is very hard to cut and paste the main data from the pop-up window.
All this would be bad enough, but even worse is the customer service back-up. It seems that HSBC has abandoned this service and no one claims responsibility for it. HSBC Premier pretends it does not exist at all. They tell me there are NO PLANS to upgrade the service, despite the blushes of acute embarrassment that any self-respecting HSBC employee must feel every time they choose to look at this dire application.
If you are looking for a share trading service, even if you are already an HSBC customer, avoid this HSBC offering all costs.