neil248

We thought we were being clever opening a HSBC account here in Australia as we bank with them in the UK and thought transfering funds between the two would be easy. We visited our branch in the UK twice explaining our situation and although not entirely confident in the person we were dealing with thought things were OK.

Opening the new account in Australia could not have been easier or the staff more helpful although it seems to take more time for things to be processed here.

Now for the not so good bit. Apparently we should have signed a fax indemnity letter in the UK to allow our UK bank to receive instructions to transfer funds into the Australian account. Its a pity that we were not told this or if we were, we did not take it in and act upon it.

We are now waiting for a letter from our UK bank for us to sign and then send back. and the time this entails. I don't know why the letter could not have been faxed and then posted back to the UK with signatures. Its now been a week and we have not received it and it has to be posted back to the UK as well.

We feel that we have been somewhat naive over this and have nagging doubts that even with the letter our proplems may not be over as although people at the bank try to be helpful they are somewhat ineffective.

The one thing we did do was bring $6000 in cash which has been a god send in the circumstances and are grateful we did not cancel our credit cards.

Has anybody had similar experiences or advice on the above. Any advice at all would be welcome.

Thanks

Wol

The thing to remember is that HSBC UK is nothing to do with any other country's HSBC - they are to all intents different companies. The local branch staff will sometimes try and be helpful but actually screw things up.

The only HSBC people to talk to in the UK are the international ones in London. Having said that we had no trouble opening accounts when we arrived - if you do it promptly there are no identity checks apart from showing the passport/visas.

NedKelly

The last thing you ever want to di is sign is a fax indemnity. If anything goes wrong, i.e. a fraudster sends a fax and transfers all your money to Timbuktu, you will not get a penny (cent) back from the bank as you have signed an indemnity. The indemnity is to protect the bank, not you.

galloping gaijin

Yup, he is right, we have had the same problem with HSBC, and had to send letters, and still have to chase it, as it goes to the branch, who forward to a "client support area" - who will probably phone you up to check security etc, and then the money will be transferred - normally a couple of weeks turnaround :scared:

Since we moved we have accounts with citibank, pain in the ar$e if you want a branch, but better organised for transfers internationnally.

Matt Sabin

Weird. We have a UK HSBC account. We've come to Oz. We've opened an HSBC account - no problem. We've transferred funds from the UK to the Oz account several times - no problem. Everyone helpful - can't say a word against them. Don't know what your fax indemnity thing is. Sounds strange...

OriginalSunshine

do what we did - sign up for the UK HSBC online banking and do an international transfer from there - dunno the limit on how much you can send though

neil248

Thanks, that would be the easiest option but we could not find any reference to international transfers when we log in or do you just put in the australian bank account number and transfer it as you would into a UK account. Have you actually done this

Thanks

hungryted

We also had the same problem, but you can transfer £10.000 at a time with out this.

Hope this helps

232Bar

If they had enough information about your account to do that, then the fax side isn't going to make any difference. You can stipulate that teh bank always confirms fax instructions with you, or you will always call first if you're really paranoid.

NedKelly

Identity fraud is one of the most rapidly increasing crimes we have to put up with. The fact that you need to provide copies of your drivers license, bank details etc, to everyone these days, e.g. just to purchase a pre-paid mobile phone doesn't help. You can't stipulate anything with a bank, read the indemnity form you have to sign. If the bank gets a fax asking to wire all your funds out they can do it without further reference to yourself. With banking call centres now in India and who knows who looking at your account, an indemnity to the bank absolving them of all responsibility, so you don't have a leg to stand on if anything goes wrong is a definate no-no.

yvsie

we had and still have an hsbc account in uk and also have one here.
i still used a third party to do exchange and place funds into account for us here though...why not? it is free....and before u say it..............yes i know they earn their bucks on the exchange rate.
the thing that pee'd me off initially wwas the staggering amount of fees that we got stung with.
i thought that i had opened the right account and was issued with cheque book etc.....hmmph...quickly learned about cheque fees so changed to an 'online ' account...now its free unless i use hole in wal too many times
just thought that i would add my 2 cents worth

neil248

Thanks,
we will ignore the fax indemnity when it comes and are now going to use another way of transfering the cash. For anyone else not in Australia yet all I can say is be more proactive before you arrive in how you are going to transfer your money and not rely on someone in your local branch saying there will be no problem and then being useless when you are here.

We also tried the telephone transfer and this also failed as the woman in the UK could not find our branch Australia and did not know how to proceed,

We would of saved ourselves a lot of heartache if we had arranged things better.

Thanks Neil

OriginalSunshine

you just need an IBAN number for the bank account

NedKelly

Australian banks don't have IBAN numbers sunshine.