Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

Hi All

My wife and I are moving over to Ottawa in August and I am just looking into setting up a bank account prior to arriving. HSBC in the UK offer a service for a reasonable fee to do all this for you with HSBC in Canada and even transfer your credit rating over too! (this is a bonus for us). This seems like a great deal to me but I wondered if anyone has negative experiences during their dealings with HSBC (Other things like having to pay monthly fees, use cheques and get charged for withdrawals from some other because I know that all institutions are kinda like that over there.)

Looking at monthly charges and running costs etc. on:

http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/consu...nStep1-eng.asp

HSBC does look like a good choice, but I just wonder about day to day dealings and personal experiences (And if anyone has an alternative institution which they would recommend that would also be appreciated).

Thanks

Jon

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

We have found HSBC to be brilliant, have account in UK and one here. Our pensions are still paid in UK as we still have houses unsold over there so still paying untility bills. Very easy to transfer funds over with no charge, but we do have the premier account. Have noticed that there are charges over here when we move money out of the savings account.
Cant fault them at the moment.:thumbup:

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

I looked at the HSBC Premier when we where in the UK but it was too expensive so a relative over here opened a bank acct and added my name onto the acct which is useful if you need 2 have funds in Canada b4 u come over.

I would say that 'IF' you really can have your credit rating recognise that might be useful. We bought our cars cash because we had no credit history. We found that no banks in Canada, including the HSBC, recognise UK credit, so make sure they really know that because although they have the same name they are separate organisations and HSBC UK may be assuming that HSBC Canada will recognise it.

We used HIFX in the uk when we emigrated. When we arrived to improve our credit rating the RBC bank gave us a credit card and we also used their service to buy a house, we had no problems with that even without jobs as long as we put 35% down.
p.s. They charge only $13 to send money home.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

Hi Emmabell and Sabsah

Thanks for both of your input; I am going to book an appointment with HSBC to go through it all in the next 2 weeks. I have only read this on their website and not actually spoken to a real person but believe that they charge £100 for the service, which go get our good credit score transferred over and ready immediately is probably worth it to us (If it works!). If they can’t do this then thanks for the advice on easy to get first Canadian credit cards and also the hassle of not being able to get a car on finance right away.

I did look at HIFX and also at Forex and Citybank for the transfer of all our funds so thanks for the rec. on HIFX - I think that we will leave most of our money in the UK for now and rent before buying as I have a hope that as soon as the UK Base rate goes up the exchange reat will get better for us for the main transfer!

Regards

Jon

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

We are with HSBC, the charge is normally £100 to open an account from the UK unless you either have £50,000 in a bank account with them or you change your normal UK account to an Advance account then the charge is £50.

The whole thing about credit rating transfer is all talk, even if they did they can only recognise it for HSBC products.....they would not be able to directly influence any collective credit scoring system. We asked for a credit card and was told we did not have any Canadian credit rating so we would have to secure the credit card with 2x credit limit....which is pants compared to other Canadian newcomer accounts.

The Canadian account they open for you will be an Advanced account which is fee free for 12 months and will be $25 per month after 12 months unless you maintain a balance of $25,000 (it will then be free).

The account will come with Debit cards (aka Interac) and Cheque books but the debit limit is $400 (per transaction) which can be a pain when you initially arrive. Expecially in places like Costco which only accept Cash, Interac or American Express.

The international transfer rate is not bad and currently there is a £5 charge per transation. The rate is sometimes better than currency transfer companies. The online banking's global view is good.

With regards to HSBC in Ottawa, there is only two branches that I know of. There is one in downtown and another one in Kanata/March road.

Last thought w.r.t transfering credit score. When we took out mobile contracts after a few weeks of being here, koodo would not put us both on one bill as we did not pass the credit score check with flying colours. This was because we did not have a credit history in Canada despite have a Canadian & UK HSBC accounts and we were limited to individual bills with a $200 maximum per month......this was another example of HSBC not being able to influence the credit score system.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

You can't transfer credit scores, simple as that. Equifax need to have a SIM Card, an address in Canada and an account using a credit facility within Canada before you can start building up a history here - I expect other credit monitoring services are the same. Really, people should NOT get their hopes up that they can move their credit score over - even between HSBC accounts (as we have too). It's a bummer, but them's the facts sadly.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

HSBC premier is the way to go. I have used it for 3 years since moving over here, we had the premier account in the UK. The credit transfer is valid for HSBC products we bought our house using a HSBC premier mortgage and the rates are among the best in the country.

Money transfers are free to and from the uk rates really good and instant.
I agree it can be a slight pain finding a branch. Use can though use bank of montreal to draw cash out the transaction charge is refunded every month.
There are planning to open more branches throughout Canada this year.

The 5 charge regarding saving account is only if you purchase stuff direct from your savings account. So make sure you have enough fund in the direct/debit account.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

Go local and get a CA bank. TD are very good - no issues.

Might be helpful to do a search on this topic too. There are lots of comments re HSBC and other banks which are quite useful.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

We opened HSBC account on line in England before we moved to Canada and all was fine. Recently closed current account and credit card with them as found them when we wanted to change anything ie increading amount on credit card so we could pay for flights etc they were not flexible at all. We always paid credit off immediately and had quite a lot in savings with HSBC but they were not helpful at all. So changed to local RBS bank and much better personal service.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

I'd echo this too. HSBC in Canada were horrible to me. In contrast, TD have been nothing but awesome.

In Canada, there are no where near the number of HSBC branches that there are in the UK, and moreover, their customer service is completely crap. For example, they wanted to hold a cash deposit for 10 days (apparently this was how long it took to count it) and put a hold on a Tax rebate cheque of mine for 21 days. I lost count (and patience) with the number of times that trying to do anything with HSBC took three times the amount of time than it took to do anywhere else. I'd been with HSBC for 17 years in the UK prior to moving to Canada, and despite holding all of my house sale funds and depositing my monthly salary, they weren't at all interested in providing anything but a pretty awful service

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

It was worth the 100 quid for me, I got my debit card, cheques and a $5k limit MasterCard before I even left the UK.

Only downside is there is only one branch in Windsor whereas there are lots of TD, RBC etc...

They can't transfer your credit score, but they will use it internally in order for you to get an unsecured credit card. This would have almost been impossible for me otherwise on a TWP.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

Premier's fine if you have $100k in equity or HSBC investments. Otherwise you don't qualify...

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

I would say get the credit card before you leave the UK as they wont do it once you are here unless you have an income or secure the credit card (regardless of having significant funds in the accounts).

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

What he said. Exactly why it's worth paying the 100 quid.

Re: Experiences of Banking and HSBC in Ottawa
 

We used HSBC and had nothing but an easy transition . Good service and all the accounts were opened including CC whilst in the UK. Easy to transfer money around also.The drawback is the lack of branches but as a premier customer they credited the $1.50 charged by other banks back to your account. Wife has her salary paid into TD so we enjoy the best of both i guess?