I worked for one of the big banks for a while. For some reason, they made me do every job in the branch, so I had to open bank accounts for a while. I was shocked when, opening my first bank account, 3 A4 pages , both sides printed, came off the printer relating to fees. The customer was highly amused at the look on my face.

3 double sided A4 pages are not enough to cover all of the fees charged

I digress, but out of curiosity, are you still working in a bank? Is your field of banking retail, corporate or private/wealth management?

Why not open a 2nd account at one of the other banks who offer newcomer packages and take advantage of their credit cards etc? It won't cost you anything and you can decide in 6 months which one you want to remain with. As for the fee charges, have you considered Tangerine or PC Financial (though the wire fee is pretty standard everywhere, unfortunately)? There's a Govt. account comparison tool that if you extend the filters, will tell you what each bank offers: https://itools-ioutils.fcac-acfc.gc.....aspx?lang=eng

Basically because my Canadian spouse banks with them, so we wanted all the accounts with the same bank. Makes doing transfers of money easier than if at a different bank and if we eventually get around to consolidating our banking arrangements (we've always maintained separate accounts), it will be easier to have everything at the one bank.

I found the process to open the accounts very straightforward and the banking officer who helped me was very friendly and welcoming. On landing I was able to open a cheque and savings account with my COPR, SIN, passport and another piece of ID in hand and get a debit card on the spot. My credit card application (made at the bank) took about 7 days to process, and receiving the card took a week or so after that.

BMO internet and mobile banking was straightforward to set up, and overseas transfers of funds into my cheque account via ClearFx have been without fee.

One thing I have learned though is that the type of debit card you have can interfere with your ability to use the Interac payment system. I was issued a BMO Debit Mastercard, and I've not been able to use this for some Interac online payments (it's all here: Interac - FAQs. So far this has not been an issue as I just use my credit card.

Yeah, the fees are incredible and eye watering in some instances. The problem is that all the main banks are identical. If one makes a move, the rest will follow suit.

As for your curiosity (and you did ask)...I was an IFA in the UK so my field is wealth management.

Not wanting to be arrogant in a new country, I thought working in a bank would be a good way to find out how the system operates here and how the public view and interact with financial services. I am glad I went down this route.

However, I left the bank when I found out that what they called financial advice / financial planning was merely asset gathering and investing. In addition, I was disgusted at the creditor protection they were pushing as life and critical illness on mortgages. This is underwritten at point of claim, which is perverse in my view.

I now work for a national company where I can offer the full holistic financial planning deal and not have to push the company's own products. True independence here refers to ownership of clients, whereas in Blighty it means you are independent of companies and can go whole of market, thus advocating for your client. I think I have come as close to that as I can where I am currently working.

We have been with BMO since we arrived in 2002- and we always find them very good to deal with.

I'm considering opening a HSBC advance account here in the UK, ready to open an Canadian account when I move early next year. Apparently you can manage all your accounts together etc.

Has anyone had any experience with this? Does anyone know if I use the HSBC international account opening service for £50 do they do the newcomer program, or does that have to be done directly with HSBC Canada?

International Account Opening but this is Canada based for opening overseas accounts

UK based - moving overseas: https://financialplanning.hsbc.co.uk.../moving-abroad

Banking for Newcomers to Canada | HSBC Canada Newcomer account for Canada

The only properly portable financial things I've heard of are Amex accounts, good standing with Amex in one country equals good standing on arrival in another, and Costco membership. None of the others, including HSBC, actually make things simple for their customers.

A good thought, although you need to be aware that their branch network is not exactly widespread throughout Canada. They do use the Exchange network for ATM banking which, I understand, works well for most transactions. However, if you need a certified cheque for, as an example, a deposit on a vehicle, you may find it a pain with no local branch.

I used to work for HSBC and still had my account with them but found it much more hassle than a newcomers account with one of the Canadian banks. Just my experience.

Well HSBC helped my make my decision yesterday

A 1.5 hour call ended with me transferring everything out of HSBC and closing my accounts. If they cause stress with simple UK banking there is no way I want to go through an international move with them!

Wish I could say I was surprised. Their service standards seem to have plummeted from my time there, although they were worse when I left compared to when I started.

My experience of even getting the information together to open a Canadian HSBC account caused me to drop the whole idea. Much better off with a newcomers package with one of the Canadian banks. I wish you well.

I'm with HSBC and have an advance account - you can only open international accounts while in the UK if you have a Premier account however, or if you have a large amount of money in savings. However, they were actually pretty helpful in my UK branch and set up a phone appointment with a Vancouver branch person to discuss it. The Canadian person gave me all their details so that I can contact them when we know our date of arrival and set up an appointment to open accounts straight away. He said that they can use my HSBC financial history to approve savings/credit cards etc. which should make things fairly easy, and I can open it jointly with my husband who doesn't bank with HSBC.

Whether it will go that smoothly is a different question I suppose, but we should have lots of options in Vancouver if we want to ditch them and open a Newcomer's account.

From my experience, those sorts of accounts are all well and good until you need something certified by the bank, e.g. a proof of funds letter for an apartment/condo rental contract. Apparently PC Financial will not sign off anything whereas the major banks will normally just do it over the counter for you. PC also apparently manage inbound wire transfers (e.g. salary payments) in a slightly obscure way because you can't have any line of risk or credit with them whatsoever.

I am quite interested in Tangerine though. It would be interesting to know if they have the same limitations as PC Financial.

I have never, ever been asked for one for a rental. Not sure it's even legal to require it! A bank statement / employment contract or post-dated cheques or a guarantor or a credit rating check are the standard.