Don't get me wrong, I do believe that HSBC are good for certain customers. As long as you fit a very traditional or conservative financial services profile i.e. certain type of income, certain type of job, certain type of investments etc.

For example my brother is still a premier customer and loved that he could transfer to HSBC premier in the states when he emmigrated there but as for me....

It's probably because I don't fit into any boxes and derive income from less traditional means which meant I couldn't benefit from their full services or products.

That said, their customer service was still less than expected (for me) and 145 branches to cover the whole of canada compared to over 1200 branches for RBC is nothing. You are lucky that Vancouver is the main base for HSBC in Canada and so most of the branches are probably in and around that area. However the nearest branch to where I will be based in Pickering is all the way over in Markham! Certainly not local enough for everyday banking!

We have had similiar experience with hsbc advanced and we are in the process of moving to a canadian bank..... especially after the whole $400 max ATM withdrawal or $400 max interac transaction. We asked for the amount to be increased and got told "your credit score was not good enough", I asked about the internal HSBC score and was told "we dont use that". Also went in and asked for help getting a credit card and was told if you dont qualify we will let you secure it with x1 the balance amount, next day I asked had it been approved unsecured and was told "no but if you want an secured card, it will be x2 the balance as we dont want to do x1".

We have been told by the our canadian bank to give them a few weeks to see pay cheques going in then pop in and they will investigate a credit card.....whilst I am not holding my breath I am interested to see how that goes.

JB

We have had no problems with HSBC and limit withdraws was $1000 a day. s I have done online banking for several years there has been no problems once in Canada. Admittedly we didn't get a mortgage with them but everything else I can not complain about. Opening the Canadian account went smoothly and we had everything before we left the UK and any time I have contacted the local branch via email or letter the changes have been made

I think there's some mis-information about credit scores.
Banks dont give you a credit score. They report your payment history etc to equifax/experian and it's equifax/experian who calculate your credit rating. Banks then use that rating to decide whether or not to approve you for credit.

Unfortunately, without a Canadian credit rating, through the Canadian operations of Equifax/Experian, you'll struggle to get any kind of credit (cell phone wont be as hard, but loans etc are gonna be a PITA).

People in the UK can tell you all kinds of things but no bank is going to be able to give you a Canadian credit score. Some banks will consider your UK credit history in their approval process, but these are one off situations. Whilst there are examples of people who have done this successfully, there are an equal number of people who were unsuccessful.

I am coming to the conclusion that soontobecanadianresident knows a lot more about Canada than us who are, you know, Canadian residents.

Used HSBC once, never again. Been with RBC 20 years and no problems that were not addressed.

My only experience with credit thus far has been arriving in Canada as a temporary resident, taking a chequing & savings account with Scotia Bank and also getting an unsecured credit card (low limit, $1000) after I'd been at work for 2 weeks.

Well said from Jericho. Absolutely right.
I probably added to the confusion by talking about the Amex situation so I should probably clarify:

Amex have their own scoring system for their members which is not an official credit rating from a credit bureau like Equifax or Experian.

Maybe you should consider why that is. Its not that confusing.

No you didn't. Yet again you made a factually incorrect statement. Not to mention that they have virtually no presence in Canada.

What you should have said is that they have virtually no presence in parts of Canada. Your experience of a bit of Canada doesn't mean you know everything about all of Canada. There are four branches of HSBC within walking distance of where I m sitting right now.

Opinion is fine, your experiences are fine, making generalizations from those experiences and presenting them as fact is, IMHO, not.

I am a Citizen.

Now I know you are just being deliberately facetious! Firstly when you talk about a bank's presence in a country you do not say they have a low presence in X but they have plenty of branches in Xprovince. You talk about a bank's presence in a country as a whole and thus to say they have a weak presence in Canada as a whole is accurate (obviously in comparison to the domestic banks, they actually have the largest presence of the foreign banks but this means nothing).

Like I said, when talking about a banks presence, you do not talk about a banks presence in various provinces, you talk about a bank's presence in a country as a whole. Just because you are lucky enough to have four branches within walking distance doesn't mean everyone will. You would be misleading people by saying this. What if someone emigrates to where you are in Canada then decides to move somewhere where there isn't even an hsbc branch within driving distance??

Where have I presented any of my opinions as fact? Perhaps you should gain evidence before presenting your baseless comments without fact? Yes I made generalizations about my experiences, it is human nature to do so, however I have clearly stated that these are my own opinions and not fact!!

I wish people would use their brains rather than jumping on what other people have been saying from other threads (as I suspect is the case here) and making their own inaccurate assumptions.



Fair enough but earlier you said :quote: us who are, you know, Canadian residents :unquote: You implied you were a resident and not a citizen.

Anyway, tired now going to bed.

Agree to disagree and all that jazz.

Anybody who has spent a reasonable amount of time in more than a little bit of Canada would know that HSBC targets their retail banking operations to areas that have a relatively large proportion of residents from south-east Asian backgrounds. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that they have more branches in Vancouver and its environs than elsewhere; it makes sense that the biggest concentration of HSBC branches in the GTA is in Markham.

In Canada, as you no doubt know perfectly well if you pause to think about it for a moment, it is by no means reasonable to talk about a bank's presence in the country as though it were a uniform distribution. Canada is not homogeneous, and it covers a huge amount of territory - it'd be no different to saying a Spanish bank does not have much presence in Europe because they have few branches in Moscow (although even that comparison, in geographical terms, is short by a time zone or two).

Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation - makes sense


:sigh: I just keep repeating myself!
When you talk about a bank's presence you talk about it's presence by country (or market)

Now I stated that HSBC's presence is Canada is weak which is accurate. However if someone wanted to know about it's presence in different provinces or areas of provinces or areas of cities, then that would be a different question.

I gave a generalized (and factually accurate) depiction of HSBC's presence in Canada as a whole. If However someone asked, I am moving to the Markham area in Toronto, what is HSBC's exposure like there? Then the correct answer would be to state that they have a good presence there but they have a fairly weak presence in Canada as a whole. You would have to mention this or you would be misleading people into thinking HSBC have a good presence in Canada when in fact they have a generally weak presence but a strong presence in certain ethnic areas of Canada.

I didn't realise Europe was a country?? Lol! Your point is invalid. As I mentioned, a bank's presence is expressed by country in general terms and can be broken into specific areas if asked. So for example that Spanish bank you mention would have excellent presence in Spain but a very weak presence in Russia.

I am not saying that Canada is homogeneous, that is not at question. A bank that has low numbers of banks in a country, concentrated in certain specific areas is not considered to have a strong presence. As I stated before, what if someone moves from an area of strong HSBC presence to an area of weak presence? Answer is they would be screwed. 'But you said they have a strong presence in Vancouver? Now I'm in rural Ontario and I don't have a branch near me!!' 'Oh yeah sorry, did I forget to mention they only have a strong presence in very specific ethnic areas? My bad!'

Being a citizen and a resident are not mutually exclusive. In fact I think the majority of people in Canada are both citizens and residents.

Agreed that you can't be a citizen and a Permanent Resident but I did not say, and certainly had no intention of implying, that I was.