HSBC in Canada is based in Vancouver and there are plenty of branches about if you are heading this way.

I was a Midland/HSBC customer in the UK and so opened an account with HSBC on a recce trip. It was cheaper to wire money between two HSBC banks than via a third party. As I was buying a house and setting up a mortgage from the UK it seemed just that bit easier.

It is certainly useful to transfer your money to Canada before you move out. The first few weeks here are expensive. You are most likely to need access to your cash and real human beings to talk to. As well as HSBC, I think RBC (and others?) will allow an immigrant to set up an account in advance. Their account is deposit only until you move to Canada and "activate" it. However, at least you have cleared funds available to you from day 1.

Hi
My opinion, wait until here,

Then HSBC & TD.

HSBC has a GBP account into which you can deposit GBP cheques at No charge.
A real easy way to transfer money from a UK account to canada, but it takes a couple of weeks..

TD has great hours/easy access.


Never leave all your eggs in one basket..

Cheers
Jerry

I paid the £100 - was worth it for me as I had a $5k limit credit card in my hand before I even got on the plane...

As someone else has said, the only slight annoyance is their debit cards won't work in the US and some ATM's don't like them (Bank of America ATM's are fine though btw)

HSBC worked well for us, did the following:
- put proceeds of house sale in UK into HSBC accounts
- apply for Premier status on basis of amount of savings
- then used this to get Premier status in Canada
- all Canadian accounts set up for free, Canadian credit card provided
- no banking fees in Canada unlike most other banks as I understand it.
- used house money to buy place here in Canada, they haven't taken Premier away, gave us mortgage here at good rate (1 percentage point below prime)

Might not work for everyone, but I've no complaints at all with it. The location thing can be an inconvenience, but branches are around. One here in Ottawa downtown which I only visit to pay in cheques. Can use BMO ATMs too.

Also have the impression that HSBC are likely to grow in Canada - especially if people wake up to fact that account fees are outrageous.

Totally the same experience here PP!! I've banked with HSBC since I was a student (1990) and had a nightmare of a time trying to open an account in canada before I left in 2005. It all sounded simple in theory, but we obviously got similarly useless people dealing with the process when we tried to put the theory into practice We ended up being able to open a CIBC account from overseas (I think that was only because my OH is a Canadian citizen) but couldn't open an HSBC account, even though they had all our history

We are in the process of opening an account with HSBC. 4 weeks in, and last night i got home to find a letter asking me to to contact them. Spoke to them and they informed me that they had lost the application.

So i am going to do it online myself, however, i am beginning to think its not worth it, and i might open an account with TD.

I e-mailed RBC and they say i can open an account online prior to landing.

Is yours the Market Street Branch (looking at your location)? If so, maybe that's a weak link, as they were ours...

We used a Morrisons Branch, which the paper work then went to Market street, and then should have gone to a Manchester branch which deals with overseas accounts.

We went to our HSBC local branch to inquire about their premier account but been told that the premier advisor is not in and told us they'll ring us but up to now no one bothers. Could it be that because we've told them that that we don't hold current accounts with them? Our savings and investments are elsewhere but would move it to them if it is convenient.

We are now wondering if we are going to bother opening with them but don't know what will be our other options. Let's say for e.g. you've got 50k how would you guys transfer that money from UK to Canada the quickest and less charges involved?

We actually found the cheapest and easiest was HSBC using global and got a really good exchange rate. We had absolutely no problems setting account up and spoke to them on the phone (international branch), they sent us forms to complete, had to pop into local HSBC so they could verify us and take copies of passports and that was it. credit and debit cards arrived in the UK quickly and had to be signed for.

If you fill in the 'contact us' form at http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/personal/hsbcpremier/apply or call them using their 0800 number you should be able to open an account by telephone..

The Premier Status Account is a recent product. As Lemonfish states you have to have “X” amount to qualify for the Premier Status. I think it's £100K minimum investment.

The followings based on my experiences in 2006 as a UK HSBC customer.
- Set up account from the UK, all straight forward.
- Provided with cheque book and ATM card on arrival in Canada upon proof of Canadian Address and SIN No. Set up online banking which worked well.
- There was a monthly charge of around $5.99 which covered for around 50 transactions per month, by cheque & ATM.
- There were very few Branches in the GTA area but you could you the BMO ATM’s free of charge subject to the above and the debit card was never a problem in any of the store machines.
- Transferring money from UK was easy and provided a good rate.

A BIG POSITIVE was that HSBC Canada offered a Sterling Account so you could transfer your cash over from the UK and hold it in Canada in Sterling until you wish to transfer to $CDN, a phonecall / online transaction.

The only negative was the only credit card offered was dependent on putting $5K in an account as a “deposit”.

In summary if you’re already a UK customer of HSBC Group it’s very straightforward, although with hindsight I’d have also set up an account locally with TD or ano for wages, local purchases etc and used the HSBC accounts purely for transferring cash between countries.

We got Premier in the UK with £50,000 after we sold our house in 2007 and dh was already a customer with them, think the $100000 is if you don't have an account with them already. We didn't have any restrictions on getting credit card and didn't have to put any money into a account as 'deposit'

I looked into but evenutally decided against the £100 set up fee from HSBC. Opened a Scotia bank a/c on arrival (once I had a permanent address). Scotia offer a free account for one year for immigrants (ie. no monthly charges for transactions). I didn't have a job so they wouldn't give me a savings a/c or credit card (even though I had savings in UK). I ended up getting a secured credit card from Capital one. If you can get a credit card via HSBC before you come out then go for it, as once you arrive all they want to know about is CREDIT REPORTS and you start at ground zero. I used my Nationwide Flex a/c in the meantime to access UK funds although they have started charging for the credit card now, and will soon be charging for the debit a/c (it used to be free overseas). Hope this is helpful.

"I looked into but evenutally decided against the £100 set up fee from HSBC"

Is this cost for the Premier Account surely it can't apply to all accounts ?