HSBC Business Banking - Serious problem

[Steve H]

Another one here.

Had a business account with HSBC since 1990, got the letter giving 2 months notice, jumped through various hoops to confirm that I'm not an international arms dealer and was told everything was fine.

Woke up one day and found I couldn't access my account because they'd closed it.

Was told the same bks about six weeks to process a complaint etc. I run pretty simple banking on a relatively low turnover so it really didn't mess my life up much so I just walked away from it.


As a side point, HSBC personal accounts actually work a lot better than their business service. My old biz account did BACS but no instant transfer, couldn't pay cheques in via the phone app, app isn't as good as the personal one and of course there's no charges on the personal account.

It's quite possible that a customer that used to have a business account with HSBC but had it closed could open a new personal account elsewhere, swap to using their personal HSBC account for their business and get better, cheaper service. Just sayin .

[Grandad Gaz]

Steve H said:

........As a side point, HSBC personal accounts actually work a lot better than their business service. My old biz account did BACS but no instant transfer, couldn't pay cheques in via the phone app, app isn't as good as the personal one and of course there's no charges on the personal account.

It's quite possible that a customer that used to have a business account with HSBC but had it closed could open a new personal account elsewhere, swap to using their personal HSBC account for their business and get better, cheaper service. Just sayin .

I've been doing that for 25+ years! But I only run a very small business.

My old accountant suggested it.

[samsock]

Grandad Gaz said:

I've been doing that for 25+ years! But I only run a very small business.

My old accountant suggested it.

Definitely legal. But there are free biz accounts with modern features. I paid a test deposit into my starlingbiz account within 15 mins of downloading the app

Some cons to personal accounts.

There are certain services you might need if your grow, such as BACS payments that are not available in personal accounts.

I have found AP of some larger clients are reluctant to register a supplier who uses personal account.

In terms of branding, perhaps worth 5 quid a month to have your business name on your cheques and invoices etc.

Though legal, Auditors might not look kindly on a personal account and there is possibility it might just tip the balance in a dispute

[240Cup]

First up an admission, I am indeed a powerfully built Company Director and I would certainly look to dominate the stairs if someone broke into my house attempting to steal the keys to my Company Renault 4. I also have a 3 figure sum I am very worried about in my HSBC Business Account (do decimal points count?).

I did the KYC on 28th December, the deadline being 21st Jan. Submitted it fine, no alerts, no emails no letters.

Went to do my PAYE on 21st to find all my payee templates disappeared. Got distracted (by a client, God forbid we should spend some time actually trying to earn a living instead of sinking under an ever increasing weight of bureaucracy such as GDPR, FCA returns, PI Renewals, updated Terms of Business Agreements, Know Your Customer surveys, Money Laundering regimes etc etc) and then went back in to my Account when I needed to pay a supplier as well as HMRC.

Still no templates. Called the HSBC online baking team, surprise surprise the Account was in the process of being shut "due to outstanding info on the questionnaire". Apparently they emailed me on 29th December (nope) and sent two letters (nope). got transferred to some funny sounding Robot reading a script (actually i think it was a fella in a Portugese Call Centre, "only thing I can do Sir is raise a Complaint which may take (you guessed it), up to 6 weeks" .......!!

Escalated it via a human being in a branch responsible for my personal accounts with them (Premier, Invest Direct, BTL mortages, residential mortgages, etc etc. had a call from 'Complaints Resolution' this morning to be told Account now back 'live' for 5 days but will only stay open if I re-complete and resubmit the whole questionnaire, and they weren't allowed to tell me which bit was missing/wrong or whatever the first time around! Apparently the new questionnaire would show up on my online banking account, errr nope.. it is not there!!

As a side issue have been trying to open a new HSBC Business Account for a separate Company (startup) for THREE months and it is still not open. Been passed from pillar to post. People have left messages for me to call them back and when you call the number "nobody in the team is authorised to help and we will have to arrange an appointment for someone to call you back" so in fact WTF was the point of leaving me a message telling me to call back?! NUTS..!!

Banked with them for 25 years, they have everything to do with my finances on both a personal and business level and they don't give a stuff. We are a UK business dealing with commercial clients in the UK. In terms of KYC, NOTHING has changed in the last 20 years. Same suppliers, same customers, same employees/Directors. All accounts have always been managed properly by us.

I am in the process of moving everything away (to Santander where a pal is a senior Manager) but what a ball ache. And you know what, THEY DON'T GIVE A TOSS at HSBC so in fact I am causing myself a load of grief in order to make a point which actually nobody will take any notice of.

The world has gone properly properly mad.

[EddieSteadyGo]

240Cup said:

First up an admission, I am indeed a powerfully built Company Director and I would certainly look to dominate the stairs if someone broke into my house attempting to steal the keys to my Company Renault 4. I also have a 3 figure sum I am very worried about in my HSBC Business Account (do decimal points count?).

I did the KYC on 28th December, the deadline being 21st Jan. Submitted it fine, no alerts, no emails no letters.

Went to do my PAYE on 21st to find all my payee templates disappeared. Got distracted (by a client, God forbid we should spend some time actually trying to earn a living instead of sinking under an ever increasing weight of bureaucracy such as GDPR, FCA returns, PI Renewals, updated Terms of Business Agreements, Know Your Customer surveys, Money Laundering regimes etc etc) and then went back in to my Account when I needed to pay a supplier as well as HMRC.

Still no templates. Called the HSBC online baking team, surprise surprise the Account was in the process of being shut "due to outstanding info on the questionnaire". Apparently they emailed me on 29th December (nope) and sent two letters (nope). got transferred to some funny sounding Robot reading a script (actually i think it was a fella in a Portugese Call Centre, "only thing I can do Sir is raise a Complaint which may take (you guessed it), up to 6 weeks" .......!!

Escalated it via a human being in a branch responsible for my personal accounts with them (Premier, Invest Direct, BTL mortages, residential mortgages, etc etc. had a call from 'Complaints Resolution' this morning to be told Account now back 'live' for 5 days but will only stay open if I re-complete and resubmit the whole questionnaire, and they weren't allowed to tell me which bit was missing/wrong or whatever the first time around! Apparently the new questionnaire would show up on my online banking account, errr nope.. it is not there!!

As a side issue have been trying to open a new HSBC Business Account for a separate Company (startup) for THREE months and it is still not open. Been passed from pillar to post. People have left messages for me to call them back and when you call the number "nobody in the team is authorised to help and we will have to arrange an appointment for someone to call you back" so in fact WTF was the point of leaving me a message telling me to call back?! NUTS..!!

Banked with them for 25 years, they have everything to do with my finances on both a personal and business level and they don't give a stuff. We are a UK business dealing with commercial clients in the UK. In terms of KYC, NOTHING has changed in the last 20 years. Same suppliers, same customers, same employees/Directors. All accounts have always been managed properly by us.

I am in the process of moving everything away (to Santander where a pal is a senior Manager) but what a ball ache. And you know what, THEY DON'T GIVE A TOSS at HSBC so in fact I am causing myself a load of grief in order to make a point which actually nobody will take any notice of.

The world has gone properly properly mad.

Initially, I was assuming the HSBC account reviews were being triggered based on a risk assessment of the account.

So for example, business accounts with Bitcoin activity, strange cash movements in/out, lots of overseas transactions coming from irregular countries etc. might be considered "high risk" and so trigger the account review process.

However, now I am wondering if the process is also related to account profitability i.e. HSBC review the accounts which don't make them any money. So perhaps the type of activity in the account doesn't earn them any fees, or there isn't a large amount on deposit in the account.

This might explain why so many people who don't appear to actually have a risky banking profile seem to be getting caught up in HSBC's administrative account shredding machine.

[stamford55]

And another - found direct debits failing this week and today the bad news that I can't get anything out of the account.

My fault I suppose as I don't open the post - assumed letters were bank statements as they look identical and I do everything online these days.

Tried to rescue it but instantly failed the telephone security questions so they won't even talk to me now. Told me to go to a branch to confirm ID, which I did this afternoon - but all the business people had bunked off home.

So that's it. I'm going to open an account with one of the digital banks but they don't take incoming IBAN payments yet. I'm not going back to a high street bank.

Been a personal and business customer of HSBC for years but they can't be bothered to email or call to wonder why I hadn't complied with the safeguarding thing despite the account being obviously active. I'll lose the linked credit card as well.

All I want to do is get the money out by bank transfer - I really don't want a cheque for a large amount in the post.

[andy_s]

EddieSteadyGo said:

However, now I am wondering if the process is also related to account profitability i.e. HSBC review the accounts which don't make them any money. So perhaps the type of activity in the account doesn't earn them any fees, or there isn't a large amount on deposit in the account.

This is my thought also.

[anonymous-user]

My understanding is it's related to splitting the UK consumer and business banks and ensuring they don't get slammed with another multi billion dollar fine for allowing money laundering. I would expect every UK business account will go through the process eventually.

Sadly, the admins used by HSBC are thick as two short planks and don't understand the task they're supposed to do.

[stamford55]

When I went into the branch (a big one, Angel Islington), the 'greeters' instantly said they couldn't help me and pretended to look for the non-existent business people. So they can't even verify an ID. Their faces said, "Another poor sod." One agent on the phone this morning admitted I am one of a long line of such callers.

That's the last straw for me.

[Rick101]

I don't know why anybody bothers. They've been like this for some time.
I can only imagine it's long term customers that think it's too much hassle to change as they've not (yet) had a problem.

[Shnozz]

Can anyone point me to where on the business website you can complete the safeguarding ste?

When in branch ordering a card recently the staff member told me I had not completed one but would need to do so. I cannot for the life of me find where you can complete it - to date not had any pop ups on logging on.

[samsock]

Shnozz said:

Can anyone point me to where on the business website you can complete the safeguarding ste?

When in branch ordering a card recently the staff member told me I had not completed one but would need to do so. I cannot for the life of me find where you can complete it - to date not had any pop ups on logging on.

For me there was a massive red persistant banner along the top. Impossible to miss or dismiss it.

[Steve H]

andy_s said:

EddieSteadyGo said:

However, now I am wondering if the process is also related to account profitability i.e. HSBC review the accounts which don't make them any money. So perhaps the type of activity in the account doesn't earn them any fees, or there isn't a large amount on deposit in the account.

This is my thought also.

I wondered about this as well but wouldn't it just be easier to just put their prices up?

[anonymous-user]

Steve H said:

I wondered about this as well but wouldn't it just be easier to just put their prices up?

It's not about profitability, it's about risk.

On a separate note, I have had two emails from HSBC in the past week telling me to log into my personal online account to view an urgent document. Not a big surprise, as I'm using the account switching service to move to Barclays.

The great thing is, I've tried twice in the past year to get my online access working and both times had to give up. Firstly the HSBC website told me to download the Android app and provided a link to it, which when I followed that and loaded it up told me it was no longer supported in the UK. So I downloaded a different one that did all the security to register, then pointed me to the HSBC website. When I did what it said on the website, it told me I needed to ring HSBC. I did this, and the Muppet on the other end told me to do the process I'd just done on the website. When I told them I'd done that and it had said ring him, I could hear some kind of infinite feedback loop going around in the empty space between his ears. He literally had no suggestion as how to solve the problem.

Frankly I cannot believe an organisation could be so feckless as to have one retail bank that wins award and award for being the best in the business and at the same time another which literally does everything within its power to ensure its customers hate it with enthusiasm.

[EddieSteadyGo]

janesmith1950 said:

It's not about profitability, it's about risk.

That's an assertion, not a fact. We all know it started out as being about de-risking their business following their well documented fines. But if you look back through this thread, there are many examples where it isn't clear the accounts being targeted are actually high risk.

[anonymous-user]

EddieSteadyGo said:

That's an assertion, not a fact. We all know it started out as being about de-risking their business following their well documented fines. But if you look back through this thread, there are many examples where it isn't clear the accounts being targeted are actually high risk.

My understanding is that all business accounts will need to go through the process. It's impractical for it all to be done at the same time (imagine the short term resource requirements). Note that it is a ’Know Your Customer’ procedure. It would be relatively illogical to aim to know about only some of your customers.

They are also being picky on areas they want to service. For example, they don't have much appetite for taking on FCA regulated advice businesses at the moment. They refused to provide an account for my holding co last year because one of my subsidiaries is an FCA regulated advice business, for example.

[EddieSteadyGo]

janesmith1950 said:

y understanding is that all business accounts will need to go through the process. It's impractical for it all to be done at the same time (imagine the short term resource requirements). Note that it is a ’Know Your Customer’ procedure. It would be relatively illogical to aim to know about only some of your customers.

They are also being picky on areas they want to service. For example, they don't have much appetite for taking on FCA regulated advice businesses at the moment. They refused to provide an account for my holding co last year because one of my subsidiaries is an FCA regulated advice business, for example.

I agree it could be a process being applied to all accounts - that would make sense. If that were the case, some general communication from HSBC account managers to build awareness and understanding might not go amiss.

[anonymous-user]

Haha, that's a good one. We've done two years with turnover more than £3.5 per annum through the HSBC account, balance of £500k and we've never had one proactive phone call throughout. At one point last year the main Leeds branch had no business managers left at all so they wanted to make me wait 28 days for an appointment in Wakefield to arrange something urgent and important. In the end they ferried someone else over from Hull to central Leeds.

Then they made me laugh by introducing the idea of a business loan, which I didn't need or ask for, that they could approve up to £30k but would require a directors guarantee. W The Actual F?

I just don't get how it can be such a mismanaged business.

Edited by janesmith1950 on Saturday 26th January 14:11

[EddieSteadyGo]

janesmith1950 said:

Haha, that's a good one. We've done two years with turnover more than £3.5 per annum through the HSBC account, balance of £500k and we've never had one proactive phone call throughout. At one point last year the main Leeds branch had no business managers left at all so they wanted to make me wait 28 days for an appointment in Wakefield to arrange something urgent and important. In the end they ferried someone else over from Hull to central Leeds.

Then they made me laugh by introducing the idea of a business loan, which I didn't need or ask for, that they could approve up to £30k but would require a directors guarantee. W The Actual F?

I just don't get how it can be such a mismanaged business.

[

Yep - similar for me. You think they would show a modicum of appreciation having you as a customer.

I've emailed and phoned my 'account manager'; he never answers his phone, and to date he has never phoned back. All I get are his circular emails which he gets told to send out, none of which are ever relevant to me.

It really is piss poor. We should move. Except that changing business banks is a risk, just in case something unexpected goes wrong, so we put up with it.

[Steve H]

EddieSteadyGo said:

janesmith1950 said:

It's not about profitability, it's about risk.

That's an assertion, not a fact. We all know it started out as being about de-risking their business following their well documented fines. But if you look back through this thread, there are many examples where it isn't clear the accounts being targeted are actually high risk.

I'm a mobile mechanic and I've had an account with them since it was Midland Bank; I'm the very definition of low risk but any risk assessments is surely taken against the benefits which can be easily increased with a cost rise.


I'm not sure that any of them are much better, I was going to open an alternative account with Santander so I popped into the local branch with all the info and ID etc that I needed according to their website but was told that the business banking fella wouldn't be back in branch again before xmas (this was a full week + before).

In the end I opened a personal account with them online so I could use my personal account with HSBC for, errr, other things.